Radically Resilient Health Podcast

Tumeric & Curcumin | Creating Gut Integrity and Controlling Inflammation

Transcript:

Connie Wray: (00:00)
Welcome back to radically resilient health with Dr. Carolyn Dolan. I am your host, Connie Ray, and over the last few podcast episodes, we’ve been diving deeper into the ingredients in Vitakinetics. You can also learn more by visiting their website. Vitakinetics.com. Dr. Dolan did extensive research to really determine what she wanted in the ingredients for Vitakinetics, with an overall goal of helping to reduce pain and inflammation. And as we’re breaking down many of the ingredients over our next few podcasts today, we’re going to be looking at the importance of curcumin and tumeric. How important are they to the healing process? And especially if you’re heading into surgery in an effort to reduce that inflammation are these two ingredients key and helping to reduce inflammation. Dr. Dolan, uh, I have heard so many great things about tumeric over the years. And I have to tell you that in the last two years, my husband has been adding tumeric to his coffee every single morning. And he swears by it saying that it’s really helped him. We, we work out, you know, four days a week. And then when we started adding Vitakinetics, uh, to our supplement regiment, he could really tell a difference, his joints, less inflammation in the knees, uh, that he was really struggling with. Talk to us a little bit about tumeric. It’s more than just a fantastic spice.

Dr. Carolyn Dolan: (01:27)
It’s really fascinating. They are different in the sense that tumeric is the Indian spice. And that’s what gives that yellow color curcumin is an active ingredient of tumeric. So in the supplement form, it’s sort of breaking down the tumeric one step further now, tumeric and or curcumin do have anti-inflammatory properties through this Cox two pathway, which may sound familiar to some folks over the non-steroidal anti-inflammatories and theoretically bypasses the gut problems. Tumeric is an antiviral. It promotes wound healing. These next things of what it does is really why I included it in our blend is that it improves the intestinal barrier function. So I remember a few podcasts ago, we were talking about intestinal permeability and the importance of the gut brain connection and the integrity, tumeric and curcumin appear to promote that intestinal integrity. So those cells lining the gut rather than becoming more separated, stay more bound together.

Dr. Carolyn Dolan: (02:33)
That’s really important when you’re going through stressful situations for healing, for micronutrient absorption, and reducing that overall excessive inflammatory state. Now in relation to our super power of inflammation, like we talked about with our macrophages per cumin and tumeric again, I use them interchangeably promote the shift of our macrophages from an inflammatory macrophage to a healing macrophage, and certain particularly in certain conditions like stroke or the other one was related to high cholesterol and stuff, but it promotes the shifting of our inflammatory macrophage into the healing macrophage, which again is really important. We talked about how being in that ideal range. You don’t want too much, you don’t want too little, you need just the right amount to get the clearing of debris and promoting the healing and making the scar tissue in other animal models like you’re discussing that your husband is noticing the effects. It reduces joint swelling, again, as far as therapeutic benefit, particularly during stressful times or times of injury or exertion, having something on board that helps promote the gut integrity and a optimal healing response is so important in curcumin over tumeric. You still get the benefits of the spice of the tumeric, but not many of us are cooking. I mean, not many people are putting to work in their coffee. You can do that

Connie Wray: (04:11)
To my husband to be that weirdo, right? No,

Dr. Carolyn Dolan: (04:14)
But that’s, that is an option there’s even tumeric lattes, but it has this, it has this specific flavor and it has a specific color and Indian curries are fantastically delicious, but it, you know, we’re not accustomed, at least in the Americas to cooking what’s Curry on an extremely regular basis, which is why supplementing then becomes useful. Right? Um, and the curcumin that form that we use in our blend is more readily absorbable, meaning it’s easier absorbed to get the therapeutic benefit. Whereas tumor tends to be more difficult to absorb past the gut barrier. This is probably my most powerful ingredient as far as therapeutic benefit within our blend. But this one is probably my, my big hitter. You know, it’s like the guy who comes in to the baseball game and if anyone’s going to be able to hit the home run, it’ll be curcumin, right.

Dr. Carolyn Dolan: (05:13)
But it does have a mild anticoagulation effect, which means this potentially thins the blood a bit. So this is where it’s important. Again, if you’re on other medications, um, are going through major surgery. Why I want this always to be communicated with your healthcare provider, but again, it is easily found over the counter. Most people in India are eating tumeric every day. And again, it’d be like taking an aspirin every day or something, you know, a aspirin to thin your blood every day. So it doesn’t have such an effect that this becomes a dangerous problem, unless of course you’re already on blood thinners. So again, a very powerful ingredient, many therapeutic benefits. I included it in there for its effect on our inflammatory process, um, and for its effect on the gut integrity. And it’s those effects that bring our inflammation into that normal range and reduce our pain.

Connie Wray: (06:19)
I also found it interesting that there are several of your ingredients, although really Vitakinetics was created to help reduce inflammation, help with the healing process. But there has also been a lot of studies done on curcumin and its effects on those who might be suffering with depression or stress just as vitamin D and vitamin C, right? We all know that it’s good for our bodies to get out into the sunshine, absorbed some of that natural vitamin D. It can absolutely boost our moods. Curcumin is another one of those as well. While there it can help you with depression or stress in your life. Were you surprised that a lot of your ingredients that you were choosing were also having these other subtle effects outside of inflammation?

Dr. Carolyn Dolan: (07:05)
I focused in on that orthopedic injury because I’m a physical therapist and that’s kind of where my home is. So was I surprised? No, because the more gut brain integrity, calming reduction of inflammation, so many chronic diseases or processes and symptoms are associated with an inflammatory response, that’s out of whack. And so if our gut is not in its best form, then we’re going to be likely to have that excess inflammation that we talked about. And then the brain is going to be more inflamed. And so there’s going to be lots of symptoms of things like depression or anxiety and what you’ll note, when we talked about that complex regional pain syndrome, patient issue, medical diagnosis that is often paired with anxiety, depression, and all of those sorts of things. So those all feed into each other. And as you start to promote a healthy healing or a healthy inflammatory process, oh, improve sleep, right?

Dr. Carolyn Dolan: (08:16)
I mean, all of these things start in getting your vitamin D from the sunshine. All of these things start to regulate that inflammatory process regulate your mood and are very effective ways at coming at treating difficult problems. So depression is a very challenging, I know that in your line of work, it’s a real challenge. And there’s, again, it’s multifactorial, meaning there’s many components that have an effect on that. Taking curcumin is not going to solve all your woes, but it can be something that might be able to help you through either a difficult time. And so for me, I have often used not only the Vitakinetics for that orthopedic scenario, injury surgery, intense workout, but as a mother, I have often used it sort of as my crutch, just to keep me in a healthy state of inflammation. So I don’t tip the balance because I’m not doing all the other things as well as I could because of, you know, my son’s in the hospital for a ruptured appendix, or there’s been a death in the family or those sorts of things that can really be problematic. So, so yeah. So am I surprised? No. Do I, um, we have to be careful about how we word it and claim, but if you suspect there’s an inflammatory process in your life, going on, the supplement can be supportive. It’s not a replacement for medical care. It’s not a replacement for good nutrition. It’s not a replacement for good sleep, but it can play a very supportive role when those things are imperfect at best, during specific times.

Connie Wray: (09:59)
Well, as you mentioned in my work with suicide prevention and mental health, we talk a lot about the gut brain connection and it’s becoming more and more prevalent as you speak about depression and anxiety that oftentimes you are finding research is showing that those individuals are having issues with that gut brain connection. Maybe they’re not eating the way they should, or they’re eating the high inflammation causing foods, which can then lead to that depression. So I found it very interesting that not only were, was Vitakinetics for me, important to be taking, to help with my inflammation, helping me to stay active, eating well, supplementing well moving well, uh, sleeping well, but that it was also all of this plays into all aspects of our entire body, our entire makeup of the going from the basics of making sure we get a good night’s sleep to getting enough sunlight, to supplementing well, to fighting inflammation and finding that right balance.

Connie Wray: (11:00)
But I think as research continues, especially with research on COVID and a lot of people who’ve been diagnosed with COVID are starting to have issues, brain fog, depression. Uh, I just recently read, as we’ve heard that many people, uh, who may lose their sense of taste, it becomes a depression issue for them. It’s really losing a sense. And so it’s finding those ways to always be thinking about how to give your body what it naturally needs. We naturally need vitamin C, we naturally need vitamin D and the effects that curcumin and tumeric have on our bodies. Uh, I just truly see, not only like you were saying with my husband, his joints are doing better, you know, he’s not feeling as always popping and cracking as much anymore in his fifties. And all of us finding those ways to just really look what is benefiting us overall, taking that all in it’s. So that’s what I love about Vitakinetics and your, your motto of eating well, sleeping well, exercising, moving, supplementing. Well, these are all key components to an overall concept of being in better health

Dr. Carolyn Dolan: (12:12)
And, and the supplement part. It’s a tool. It’s not a replacement, but it’s a tool or to assist or optimize a specific situation. And you bring up a really important point, which maybe we should, um, put a pin in this idea of talking about the reverse effect of the brain on the gut, because it’s really, um, you know, we talk about the gut brain and really where, what the supplements are working on the promoting the gut health as a means of optimizing the inflam inflammation in your brain. But there is, um, data suggests the reverse is works. I mean, and it can become a problem. So, you know, things like brain injury or strokes can then have an effect on our gut integrity. You know, so it’s this feedback loop. It’s not unidirectional, but it can go, it can absolutely go both ways. And so things like, uh, depression, um, depending on the cause for whether it’s situational or relation to post-traumatic stress disorder or something like that, it’s a feedback loop. And when you get into those states, you know, that there’s a place for considering all of those components are helpful, but often not one singular thing is enough, but anyway, so it might be something we should put a pin in that and say, oh, maybe we need to circle back circle back in that conversation. But again, tumeric and curcumin, um, our tool that can be beneficial

Connie Wray: (13:39)
And we’re going to continue our conversation on the ingredients, Vitakinetics, the importance of these ingredients in your, your daily lifestyle and the benefits that it can have. And we’re very excited because as we move through this, what we’re going to be talking about now is moving forward in our next podcast. Episodes is enzyme. What is the importance of having an enzyme also coming up is microbiome support. How important is it to make sure that our gut it is, is as healthy as possible, especially if we’re coming off of an injury or just re recouping from a surgery, taking all of these things into consideration. And of course you can find out more in detailed information about each of the ingredients by visiting Vitakinetics.com.