Dr. Rhonda Patrick on health: what the evidence says · JRE #773
SUBJECT: HEALTH
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
this clinical study that compared people that took the Meriva curcumin in the phosphatidylcholine complex, they took two grams a day and it was comparable, the pain relief was comparable to um 800 milligrams of ibuprofen
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
A 2009 randomized trial (Kuptniratsaikul et al., 107 knee osteoarthritis patients) did compare 2 grams/day of a curcumin extract against 800 mg/day of ibuprofen over six weeks and found the two similarly effective and safe for pain and function, with ibuprofen showing a small edge only for stair-climbing pain. However, that trial used a standard Curcuma domestica extract, not Meriva, the proprietary curcumin-phosphatidylcholine (phytosome) complex Patrick names. A published trial of Meriva specifically (Belcaro et al.) used a much lower curcumin-equivalent dose, about 200 mg/day, not 2 grams/day, and had no ibuprofen comparator arm at all. A separate Meriva pain-relief study compared it to nimesulide and acetaminophen, again not ibuprofen. No identified published trial tested 2 g/day of the Meriva phosphatidylcholine complex head-to-head against 800 mg/day ibuprofen. The specific dose comparison Patrick describes appears to conflate findings from two different curcumin formulations and studies; the underlying general point that some curcumin preparations can match NSAID pain relief in knee osteoarthritis is supported by separate literature, but not as stated for Meriva at that dose.