Curcumin and its role in autoimmune disease: Literature review

Abstract

Autoimmune disease is responsible for a considerable disease burden worldwide. There is an increasing interest in the development of nutritional supplements that contain naturally occurring plant compounds able to alleviate the symptoms associated with autoimmune disease. One such compound is curcumin, the main active component of turmeric (Curcuma longa), which has been shown to possess anti‐oxidant and anti‐inflammatory properties. This paper reviews evidence for the positive effects of curcumin on the symptoms of five autoimmune diseases: scleroderma, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease and diabetes mellitus, including evidence from in‐vitro, animal and human clinical studies. Evidence supports curcumin as being able to positively influence the symptoms of these five autoimmune diseases, although there are relatively few published human clinical trials to provide clear evidence for its effects and studies taking a nutritional standpoint are even fewer. Considerable variation exists in trial design, including but not limited to the use of blinding, randomisation and controls, highlighting the need for a systematic review approach to be implemented in future. Such an approach would critically select and assess published and unpublished evidence and enable more concrete conclusions to be established about the efficacy of curcumin as a nutritional supplement for treating autoimmune disease.