A few days ago, a friend gushed about the amazing curative properties of turmeric.
If you’ve ever eaten Indian cuisine, you’ve most likely eaten turmeric. It's a yellowish-brown spice that comes from (not surprisingly) the turmeric plant - more precisely from the rhizome of the turmeric plant, the thick root-like portion of the stem that remains underground.
But did you know that there are scientists all over the world researching the curative powers of turmeric? This isn’t just some hokey folk medicine, this is like, real science and stuff. But before you start pouring teaspoonfuls of turmeric into your morning smoothie, you might want to hear a little more about the current state of research.
In the beginning...
Turmeric has been used in India and China for a long time for various illnesses, mostly for stomach and liver problems, as well as an antiseptic. Nobody is one hundred percent sure what the active ingredient in turmeric is, but most scientists believe it is curcumin, a type of polyphenol.
