Turmeric Curcumin Effectively Reduces Pain And Fatigue After Surgery

Turmeric has been used in India for centuries in treating traumatic pain and fatigue and scientists wanted to see if its traditional use could stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Researchers decided to study effects of turmeric-curcumin on people recovering to surgery to see if it could actually reduce post-surgery pain and fatigue.

A double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled study of 50 people who had their gallbladder removed was designed to test the efficacy of turmeric-curcumin in treating post-surgery pain.

Patients were given either curcumin or a placebo, and both groups were able to take rescue pain killers if the pain became unbearable. The curcumin group had a much easier time dealing with the post-surgery pain than the group who only received placebos.

Both groups did have to end up relying on medicine to help cope with the pain, but the placebo group had to take far more medicine than the curcumin group.

The placebo group on average had to take 39 of the rescue pain killers following surgery. In comparison the curcumin group only had to take 7. Even though the curcumin group was able to significantly cut down on the amount of pharmaceutical pain killers needed, the rescue medicine was still needed.

You might ask why not just take the pain killers instead? Pharmaceutical drugs have side effects like nausea, rash, liver damage, and increased risk of heart attack and stroke, while the curcumin does not. It is best not to have to use drugs at all because of the side effects, but if it is necessary it is better to reduce the amount used.

Not only is the use of curcumin better for the body than use of synthetic medicines, its use is also better for the ecosystem. As the study in the video put it, the use of curcumin was more eco-friendly than the use of synthetic drugs because of the carbon footprint left by the synthetic drugs due to their industrial production.