KU News Release

Media advisory: KU professor available to discuss arthritis findings

LAWRENCE — For thousands of years, East and South Asian cultures have used the spice turmeric in traditional Ayurvedic medicine to treat inflammation. Most people recognize it in foods that contain curry.

“In a way, without having knowledge of chemistry and pharmacology, people were using these plants and saw that they were having a positive effect on their health,” said Barbara Timmermann, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Kansas.

In recent years, the dietary supplement industry in the United States has popularized the spice, claiming it treats inflammation, Alzheimer’s and digestive disorders. But those supplements are not held to the strict regulations of the Food and Drug Administration.

Timmermann and her colleague Janet Funk at the University of Arizona used modern science to test the truth of those claims in a recent study.

Their interdisciplinary research team of botanists, doctors, chemists and pharmacologists found turmeric greatly lowered joint inflammation in lab rats.

“What we did is just using modern science to prove why turmeric works the way it does,” Timmermann said.

Timmermann said they found turmeric has three curcumin components that reduce the enzymes, such as prostaglandins, that cause inflammation.

Their research article “Efficacy and Mechanism of Action of Turmeric Supplements in the Treatment of Experimental Arthritis” will be published this week in the November issue of Arthritis and Rheumatism.

The research is funded by the National Institutes of Health through the Arizona Center for Phytomedicine Research. The center, established by Timmermann in 2000 when she was at the University of Arizona, was funded with $9.8 million. Although started in Arizona, Timmermann’s research continues at KU in collaboration with colleagues in Arizona.

She will be available to the media today and Tuesday, Oct. 31.

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