Curcumin and Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Potential and Limits of Innovative Treatments

Abstract

Curcumin belongs to the family of natural compounds collectively called curcuminoids and it possesses remarkable beneficial anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, and neuroprotective properties. Moreover it is commonly assumed that curcumin has also been suggested as a remedy for digestive diseases such as inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), a chronic immune disorder affecting the gastrointestinal tract and that can be divided in two major subgroups: Crohn's disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC), depending mainly on the intestine tract affected by the inflammatory events. The chronic and intermittent nature of IBD imposes, where applicable, long-term treatments conducted in most of the cases combining different types of drugs. In more severe cases and where there has been no good response to the drugs, a surgery therapy is carried out. Currently, IBD-pharmacological treatments are generally not curative and often present serious side effects; for this reason, being known the relationship between nutrition and IBD, it is worthy of interesting the study and the development of new dietary strategy. The curcumin principal mechanism is the suppression of IBD inflammatory compounds (NF-κB) modulating immune response. This review summarizes literature data of curcumin as OPEN ACCESSMolecules 2014, 19 21128 anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant in IBD, trying to understand the different effects in CD e UC.

The anti-inflammatory effect and potential mechanism of cardamonin in DSS-induced colitis

“…Novel therapies, including TNFneutralizing antibodies, have demonstrated efficacy in improving mucosal healing, but their side effects and toxicity remain major clinical concerns (21). Therefore, the development of medicinal plants or their active components with minimum adverse reactions is becoming an increasingly attractive approach in the management of IBD patients (26,27). Chalcones belong to the flavonoid family, which possess a variety of biological and pharmacological properties, including antioxidant, cytotoxic, anti-cancer, anti-microbial, anti-protozoal, antiulcer, anti-histaminic, and anti-inflammatory activities (24).…”

“…Excess or inappropriate activation of NF-B has been observed in IBD patients and experimental IBD animal models (2). It has been demonstrated that the blockade of NF-B activation with flavanoid agents might be an effective strategy in abrogating experimental IBD (6,26). The most abundant form of NF-B in cells is the p50/p65 heterodimer, which is normally sequestered in the cytoplasm by binding to the inhibitory protein A B IB␣.…”

“…Despite optimal medical therapy, about one-third of patients with UC and two-thirds of those with Crohn's disease eventually require surgery at certain point during the course of the treatments (11). Therefore, new agents, especially those with limited side-effects and clear molecular mechanisms have been intensively investigated in recent years (26,27).…”

The Effect of N. Acetylcysteine and Ginger on Acetic Acid Induced Colitis in Adult Male Albino Rat: Histological, Immunohistochemical and Morphometric Study

“…New therapeutic alternatives are in need. In addition, the long-term use of the pharmaceutical drugs results in numerous side effects [8]. So, new therapies such as the nutritional ones, especially those with antioxidant properties are suggested for the treatment of such disorders.…”

Nanostructured lipid carriers enhance the bioavailability and brain cancer inhibitory efficacy of curcumin both in vitro and in vivo

“…It has been used for thousands of years as a food addictive in India. Due to its pharmacological effects, recently many researches have focused on its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-tumorigenic properties (Bandyopadhyay, 2014;Vecchi Brumatti et al, 2014;El-Bahr, 2015;Shanmugam et al, 2015). Numerous works prove that cur exerts strong anticancer effects against a far ranging of human cancer cells, including breast cancer, lung cancer and HCC (Jia et al, 2014;Chen et al, 2015;Guo et al, 2015).…”