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26.12.2021

Curcumin supplementation | More stem cells in recovering muscles in old age

If people respond just as well to curcumin as lab mice, then supplementation with an easily absorbable form of curcumin will not only extend their lifespan. In addition, administration of curcumin in the elderly will stimulate stem cells to regenerate muscle tissue.

Study
Italian biologists at the University of Padova experimented with 18-month-old young lab mice. For 6 months, the Italians gave subcutaneous injections of curcumin, which was dissolved in hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin, to some of the mice.

For more details about the method of administration and the dosage, we refer to the publication of the Italians. It is fully available on the web.

Mice in the control group received injections.

Results
Not entirely unexpected, administration of curcumin reduced the risk of death as a result of aging by 35 percent.

The graph above refers to C57BL10ScSn mice. The researchers also experimented with C57BL6J mice, and curcumin also extended lifespan in those lab animals.

At the same time, curcumin reduced the loss of muscle mass due to the aging process. When the mice were 24 months old, curcumin prevented the decrease in the number of fast type-2 muscle fibers in the extensor digitorum longus [EDL], a muscle group with many strong and fast muscle fibers.

The table below also refers to C57BL10ScSn mice. Click on it for a larger version.

The figure above shows how curcumin protects muscles against aging. The researchers damaged muscle tissue from the mice, allowed the mice's body to repair the damaged tissues, and then looked at how many stem cells they found in the muscle. Curcumin increased the number of stem cells in the recovering muscles.

The effects of supplementation became stronger when the researchers exposed the muscle cells ex vivo to curcumin again.

Click on the figure for a larger version.

Conclusion
"Chronic systemic curcumin administration appears to be very efficient in aging mice, since it significantly decreased spontaneous mortality during senescence, efficiently counteracted presarcopenia and greatly attenuated sarcopenia, improving satellite cell commitment and recruitment", write the Italians.

"In addition, the low frequency of subcutaneous administration of our curcumin formulation, compared to the use of osmotic pumps, represents a major strength toward a future translatability of this protocol to humans."

Source:
Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Oct 30;22(21):11789.

More:
Curcumin supplement increases muscle strength and fitness in people over 65 - again... 24.12.2020
Curcumin increases the muscle strength of people over 65 20.12.2020
More muscles in old age thanks to curcumin supplementation 12.03.2019

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