Here is some more information I looked up on this and decided to add the black pepper to the mix. All I do tho is take my little packet of 3 pills and then mix about 1/8 tsp of pepper into a little container of juice and swallow it down after the pills. Now I'm sure the doc's pills have some kind of binding ingredient that helps the Curcumin to work better but I thought I could add the pepper to make it work even better...........maybe?
Here is something I found on the net about the pepper helping the Curcumin be stronger and bind better.
Bioavailability
Apparently Curcumin has an extremely low oral-bioavailability. HOWEVER just adding a little pepper will boost the oral-bioavailability about 2000%!
Quote:
If you mix 2 parts ground turmeric with 1 part ground black pepper and put it in a capsule you can feel the curcumin.
...
When using black pepper to boost the effects of curcumin orally by 2000%, you only need 400 mg of black pepper (about 1/4 tsp). Black pepper usually contains at least 5% piperine, and often more. All you need is 20 mg of piperine to boost the effects of curcumin orally. 400 mg of black pepper at 5% piperine contains 20 mg of piperine.
....
Maybe if curcumin is combined with piperine orally it can activate
DMT orally. But without piperine, I'm pretty sure it's not going to work unless you take a ton of curcumin. Without piperine, you need to take 20 times as much curcumin. So if say 500 mg was enough for MAOI activity with 20 mg of piperine, then on it’s own you’d need 10 grams of curcumin! So, I wouldn’t even bother using it orally without piperine.
Duration
The effects only last about 4hrs tops. So it is necessary to keep re-dosing
if trying to achieve some kind of long-term therapeutic effect.
Quote:
Turmeric Root (active ingredient = curcumin) it is an MAO-A inhibitor. However, it is not absorbed by the body, unless you take it with Piperine (Black Pepper, the stuff in your cupboard hopefully) . . from my experiences, 1-2 huge spoonfuls of Turmeric powder + 1 small spoonfull of ground up black pepper really helped me with SA. of course, its a very Weak MAOI...but it also has neuroprotective properties, and is an NMDA antagonist.
It helped me alot last school year, the downside being,
the effects only last about 3-4 hours after dosing. So every 4 hours you have to re-dose (swallow more of the turmeric powder, i chugged it down with milk, it wasn't too bad)
Experiences
The following is simply a compiling of various reports in effort to describe the effects of Curcumin (Tumreric). These reports largely do not reflect in a therapeutic sense, rather just "feelings" or effects noted.
Quote:
I tried a single dose of Curcumin several days ago. 300mg Solgar brand Tumeric from Whole Foods, 95% Curcumin. Lunchtime dose.
It was a bad day to start with. The hours after the dose, it just got worse. I felt more tired, more depressed. Any bit of forced energy or forced motivation I had just evaporated into dark survival. I just couldn't wait for bed to get it over with.
Oddly, I couldn't fall asleep. I always sleep good. I tossed and tossed. It felt similar to that serotonin/norepinephrine/dopamine stimulation I have felt on various psych drugs. After 4 hours, I finally gave up and took a half of a Benadryl. It put me to sleep in about half an hour.
The next morning took me by surprise. I woke feeling a kind of refreshed "it's a new chapter" kind of feeling, the same thing I felt after my first dose of the MAOI antidepressant Parnate.
About halfway through the morning I felt warm, energetic, and clear headed. My weak rubbery legs had bounce and energy. Pains from Lyme disease were nearly gone. My brain fog turned into crystal clear seeing and thinking. Sharp. My appetite was down. There was absolutely no doubt Curcumin had an astounding effect that took me totally by surprise.
All over the net it is claimed there are no side effects. I found that laughable. My side effects were: Appetite supression; anxiety (the chest/belly kind); and insomnia. My friend at another forum said insomnia was the side effect he couldn't handle. I can see why.
The benefits though were huge. Depression went from a monster to a whimper overnight. Energy went from the dumps to the clouds. Fog totally vanished. Instead of avoiding people and conversations, I was actually approaching people and conversations.
I am thinking of retrying it, but starting at a much lower dose and working my way upward, with customized home-made doses.
One-time fluke or real potential? Dunno. We'll see. All I can tell you is that nothing, absolutely nothing, out of dozens of herbs and dozens of psychiatric meds, have impacted me in such a positive way so rapidly and unexpectedly, except for Parnate. It is curious to see that one of the claimed actions of Curcumin is a MAO inhibitor. That's what Parnate is.
Back to your original question, one study I found showed that Curcumin enhanced the effects of subclinical doses of Prozac and a couple other antidepressants. Based on that, it would appear to me it is safe to combine with SJW. If you do it, I would go into knowing that the hype on the net about no side effects is a bit negligent in my opinion.
I took curcumin for years for pain in my joints. Eventually, those pains went away. So I stopped the curcumin. After this, I realized during this time, I didn't experience random episodes of depression. After I stopped supplementing with it, those depressive episodes came back. I little research on pubmed shows that Curcumin is a potent antidepressant. It is also a great anti-inflammatory, immune modulator, is neuro-protective and many other functions.
Curcumin is also used for patients with Alzheimers disease as it reduces the amyloid plaques that develpop in alzheimers patients. We've found in this forum that things that help alzheimers patients, like lecithin and choline are also beneficial to us. Curcumin also acts as an MAO-B inhibitors. This is what breaks down serotonin and other neuro-transmitters in the brain. Curcumin increases glutathione in the brain....Also, curcumin is typically use against cancer...Curcumin can boost the immune system and has anti viral, bacterial and fungal properties.
