What does the evidence say about turmeric’s health benefits?

Maybe you’re seeing it everywhere on the café menus recently – the “golden milk” – hot milk mixed with turmeric. But does it actually help your health or just taste good?

We had all seen the new trend at our local cafe menus - the drink combined with hot milk and turmeric, coconut oil or even small amounts of honey in it.

Turmeric has been proclaimed a nutrient-rich food lately. One of the health boosters – found as a yellow powder which was used in the Asian kitchen for thousands of years.

However, what do the studies have to say about this latest nutrient-rich food trend about the health advantages of consuming it? And which form is better than the other? (1)

Why turmeric?

Way before he become the ultimate beverage trend at café menus, this ingredient was known as one of the most popular healing food in the ancient Indian system of medicine Ayurveda – where it was used for treating respiratory conditions or as an application to heal the skin. Today his primary use is to mix it with milk or water to ease an upset stomach or sore throat.

Turmeric is found to be one of the most effective nourishment supplements in existence.

Many conducted high-quality researches claim that it has major health benefits both for your body and brain.

Below are some of the top evidence-based health advantages of turmeric:

1. Anti-Inflammatory Compound

We all know how important inflammation is for our bodies. It leads to helping the body to fight against foreign invaders and also have a crucial role in repairing the damage.

The lack of inflammation could cause pathogens like bacteria easily to take over our bodies and kill us.

Anything at all that can help us to fight chronic inflammation is of crucial importance to prevent and even treat these diseases.

Curcumin contains components that are highly anti-inflammatory, so powerful that it even matches with the effectiveness of many anti-inflammatory drugs.

2. Increases the Antioxidant Capacity of The Body

Scientists believe that occurring oxidative damage is one of the mechanisms behind ageing and many diseases. It involves highly reactive molecules and free radicals. Free radicals often react with important organic substances, also known as proteins, fatty acids or DNA.

The leading reason why antioxidants are so beneficial is that they protect and prevent our bodies from free radicals. Curcumin is a potent antioxidant that can neutralize free radicals due to its chemical structure.

Another great thing about curcumin is that it also boosts the activity of our own body’s antioxidant enzymes. In that case, it blocks them directly, and then activates the body’s own antioxidant mechanisms. (2)

3. Help you with Weight loss

The turmeric by itself, other than help with inflammation and fat cell expansion, can’t help you with happening a weight-loss miracle. You must still put yourself on a dietary regimen and exercise more to create a calorie deficit to lose those extra pounds.

But, in combination with other ingredients, it can help you lose weight. For instant, if you try to combine apple cider vinegar you can get a fantastic recipe for building a healthy and well-shaped body. The advantage here is that both ingredients are natural and promise health benefits for both healthier inside and appearance.

We are often distracted by focusing on searching for new future inventions for weight loss or maintaining our healthy self, but we are forgetting that there are already ingredients from the past to help us achieve the look we are seeking for.