Information Awareness Report - Ayurvedic Herb

Information Need

I recently attended a yoga class in which the organizers discussed ayurvedic herbs that promote health and prevent illness. One herb they recommended is turmeric, which I have always considered as a spice rather than an herbal medicine. I am interested in learning more about ayurvedic medicine, and from what I have read so far, herbs are medicines that should be prepared and combined properly. I would like to investigate the topic of turmeric to see if this is a good herb to take regularly as a supplement. I wish to find out about (1) its general uses and effects (safety), (2) how to prepare it, and (3) the proper dose.

Initial Steps

I looked for general information on turmeric based on a few resources I already use and know. Initial resources I consulted included the following:

Online: Banyan Botanicals (www.banyonbotanicals.com) is one of my favorite herb sites. This site indicated many beneficial effects of turmeric, including antibiotic and antioxidant properties and aiding of the digestive tract and the joints; this resource also indicated that turmeric is a helpful herb for my constitution (called vata). This website is a trusted resource for buying bulk organic herbs/spices because I have bought items from them before with good results.

Printed resources: I found two ayurvedic print books that discussed this herb in terms of its medicinal qualities:

The Yoga of Herbs: An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine by Dr. David Frawley and Dr. Vasant Lad. Although it had some good general information, this book seemed to be a text for advanced practitioners; some information on preparation was too complex for beginners.

Ayurvedic Cooking for Self Healing by Usha Lad and Vasant Lad. This book had some information about the benefits of the herb and its use in food dishes. It did not have recipes for its preparation as a supplement.

Person: I consulted an Indian friend familiar with turmeric on the proper way to take it as a supplement. She thought a good recipe is taking the powder form, making a paste with water, and rolling it into balls that can be swallowed with water. She said making a paste was much cheaper than buying supplement capsules, which can be fairly expensive. She did not have a recipe per se.


Questions and Search Terms

After I obtained some general information about the herb, I consulted scientific and general websites/databases to see the research and dosing on turmeric.

-PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/. A search of “turmeric” in PubMed gave many clinical studies on the herb’s positive effects, including preventing and treating cancer. Some research articles also contained information on dosages as it related to clinical studies. I also tried the search term “turmeric preparation” but found nothing relevant. It was very difficult to use this website to locate specific information on preparing the herb for everyday use as a supplement. Some of the research reports indicated that turmeric is not very bioavailable, meaning it is not absorbed very well. The type of preparation (as a paste, in oil, in milk, with honey, etc.) could greatly affect how well it can be absorbed and therefore used by the body. I may have to go to specific websites or texts to find recipes.

-Medline Plus: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/patient-turmeric.html. A search for “turmeric” resulted in a long article on turmeric safety, efficacy, and dosage. A few research studies reported that a safe dose of the powder is 450 mg to 1 g twice daily.

-American Botanical Council: http://cms.herbalgram.org/herbalmedicine/Tumericroot.html. This is a new website I found on herbs that seems trustworthy. A search for “turmeric” produced a general article on turmeric with dosages and some information on making a paste. This information seemed similar to that on the Medline website.

-National Center for Alternative and Complementary Medicine: http://nccam.nih.gov/ This is normally a good, trusted website as part of the National Institutes of Health for complementary medicine, but it was inaccessible for some reason. I will follow up on this website later.

-WebMD (www.webmd.com): Nothing on turmeric at all (this is surprising given all the research done on turmeric so far).

-I did a general search of the web using Google to help me find turmeric preparation recipes. I searched for “turmeric” “turmeric benefits” “turmeric preparation” “how to take turmeric”. This led to some interesting but sometimes random links to various websites that ranged from news and research reports, herbal supplement companies, and commentaries from ayurvedic practitioners and authors (the information seemed to be of varying quality and trustworthiness; I also noticed some information is merely copied from other websites without giving proper credit). However, the result of this type of random searching and browsing included some useful information (some of it needing to be verified though):

-Turmeric absorption is greatly increased (2000 times) by adding ground black pepper to its preparation; other herbs such as ginger and almond oil can be added for taste and to enhance its use as a digestive herb.
-The quality of the turmeric is important; news reports indicated that some ayurvedic herbs from questionable sources contain high levels of toxic metals. This means it is important to know your source before buying it.
-I found various recipes for preparing turmeric ranging from turmeric tea made with milk, a honey/ginger powder, turmeric with ghee, and paste made with water and simmered for 15 minutes. These recipes were not on websites I know well, so I will have to try the recipes myself to find the best preparation.

Experience/Satisfaction with Results

On the basis of finding a combination of medical information, news reports, recipes, and general information on turmeric, I feel satisfied with the overall results of my search. I trust the medical and scientific information about the safety, efficacy, and dosage from reliable websites, such as PubMed, more than information from the general websites. I liked that I could verify some of the medical information on more than one website.

Information about the best way to prepare the herb as a daily supplement seemed more anecdotal and harder to find. I found myself jumping from different websites and links to find essentially a “medicinal” recipe—not a recipe that you would find in a typical cookbook but also not one you would necessarily find in a medical report. I thus collected the information from various sources and will need to test the recipes myself. However, it is a good start.

What I learned

-I value scientific information from respected sources. I tend to rely on a few good, trusted sources and like to verify the information in several places.

-People are good resources for pointing me towards additional reliable resources (website, book, database). It is sometimes hard to find these valuable resources on my own—especially if the topic is new to me.

-I usually like having more information than less information about a topic, especially if I am collecting information at the beginning of a search.

-Random, general searching on the web using Google or other general search engine can be helpful at the beginning for understanding the scope of the search and for uncovering useful perspectives; however, eventually I get very fatigued by jumping from link to link and article to article, trying to locate the most relevant information.

-If I encounter conflicting data about a subject, I keep collecting information until I can resolve those conflicts.

-Once I find the right information, I feel a certain sense of relief. Because of my curiosity, I am sometimes left with more questions and areas for further exploration.

-I like to test the information I find in “real life” to see if it is ultimately useful.

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