I read this great artlcle on a Chiro blog -http://www.chiro.org/wordpress/?p=12126 - it talked about curcumin and using it to help minimize disease-related changes and repair damage to the spinal cord. I actually just started working with this company that has a great product, Empower. I think it's so amazing the things that we are learning about natural health. Using curcumin (WAVMpower is what I used to use) and how this herbal extract changed so many lives. In fact it's because of how it changed biochemist and natural bodybuilder, Franco Cavaleri's that that JM Ocean Avenue was launched.

You may not know that Franco was a natural bodybuilder, and years ago while getting ready for a professional level body building competition qualifier, Franco. started to feel ill.He had run out of the raw materials he used to extract the herbal supplements that he was creating and using, and found himself in the hospital with a diagnosis of Ulcerative Colitis, which is closely related to Chron’s Disease. Basically, his body was laying waste to his large intestine – causing massive inflammatory reactions.

None of the traditional medical remedies were working to improve Cavaleri’s condition, and his doctors advised immediate removal of his large intestine.That was an aha moment for Franco. He shared his story with the doctor's about how he’d kept the symptoms of his ulcerative colitis in check. Cavaleri’s doctors were amazed that he’d been able to compete at the higher levels of body building – maintaining weight, muscle mass, and stamina - mainly because his body should have been succumbing to the colitis in a much more aggressive fashion.
Ulcerative Colitis is a disease that develops over time.


Ulcerative colitis is a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Ulcerative colitis is a form of colitis, a disease of the colon (large intestine), that includes characteristic ulcers, or open sores. The main symptom of active disease is usually constant diarrhea mixed with blood, of gradual onset. IBD is often confused with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a troublesome, but much less serious, condition.What Cavaleri realized at that point was that his work with Nutrigenomics and the supplements that he had created and were taking were giving his body the strength and ammunition required to keep his ulcerative colitis at bay.

Essentially, Franco Cavaleri had been succeeding at fighting off his ulcerative colitis to a much more effective degree than any of the traditional medicine implemented in the hospital had been able to do.

As Cavaleri wrestled with the possibility of life changing surgery, he decided to go back on his anti-inflammatory remedy His doctors agreed to monitor his progress, and within one week Cavaleri’s symptoms from ulcerative colitis subsided. Within three weeks he’d gained back the 50 lbs he’d lost while in the hospital and was feeling fine. Months later, he got back into weight training to prepare for his shot at a professional level body building competition.

One year later, Franco Caveleri won the Mr. North America Body Building Competition – fulfilling a long time goal. Franco's real passion is good health – and on the organic side. Some of the ingredients in the products are even organic - and these products are helping so many people. One of my closest friends has been seeing amazing reduction of the swelling that is caused by her CVI. And in fact, Ryan, my upline cute little leader, and Fred Ninow's son has seen amazing changes using it as well. I will be excited to see how it will help my mom's aging hands, my husband's two bad knees, and my chronic inflammation due to allergies long term. And we know that inflammation is the disease culprit.

When we moved into our dream house that took a huge toll on my body and created major inflammation. I don't think I could have survived without my turmeric. I took 4 capsules morning and night to help me get through the day and sleep. 

Let's look at what's in the Isagenix Athlete's Pak and the JM Ocean Avenue LifePack 

If you are like me, your fitness is very important to who you are, and is a big part of your lifestyle. Supplementation as well as whole foods are also a big part of my lifestyle and I have to be sure any supplementation is going to naturally support my body in a healthy manner with as many real whole food sources as possible. So, I wanted to check out the difference between two of the leading companies packages for athletes because fitness is my business, so I looked into one company that a lot of people have talked about, Isagenix, to compare with Ocean Avenue. 

The components of the Athlete's Pak is

• 2 canisters of IsaLean® Shake
  1 Ionix® Supreme (liquid or powder)
  1 IsaPro®
  1 Want More Energy?® canister (45-servings) or 2 boxes of 24-count sticks
  1 box IsaLean® Bars

The Isagenix Athlete's Pak contains first off the IsaLean Shake, which is also using an undenatured whey like JM Ocean Avenue's shakes use, flaxseed like the WAVSmart shake offers. Now remember that it also has guar gum. Guar gum be described as a natural food thickener, similar to locust bean gum, cornstarch or tapioca flour. It is said to have significantly more thickening ability than cornstarch, at a fraction of the cost. The use of guar gum as an ingredient in non-prescription diet aids was officially banned in the early 1990s by the FDA. It would bind with liquids in the stomach and swell, causing a feeling of satisfying fullness. This swollen mass could also cause dangerous intestinal and duodenal blockages, however. Guar gum was declared unsafe and ineffective for use as a non-prescription diet aid, although it is still used in small amounts as a food thickener and binder.It has a lot of vitamins, but doesn't appear to have anything that is real whole foods. It also has "natural flavors" in it.

The IsaLean is sweetened with yucca root, honey, vanilla bean and about 14 grams of sugar.

The Ionix Supreme has what they call their proprietary blend of fruit extracts, and blackstrap molasses. You can google about all of the benefits of blackstrap molasses, but you are here on this site because you are living a different life, a paleo vegetarian life. It goes through three boilings of the sugar syrup and the majority of sucrose from the original juice has been crystallized. The blackstrap molasses is still mostly sugar by calories. Blackstrap molasses goes through extensive boiling and probably destroys the integrity of the product.  

How use of Curcumin differs between injury and cancer 

I had a great conversation with one of the Distributors in our team last night about the role of curcumin and how it's being used. Now pain begins when specialized receptors (nociceptors) are activated following damage to joint tissues.  And when immune cells first detect any signs of tissue injury or stress, they activate a cellular protein, called nuclear factor kappa-B (or NF-kappaB or Nuclear Factor.) This protein is the main ‘switch’ that turns on the inflammation in the tissues in your body. Activated NF-kB signals the cell (via many pathways, including through the activation of inflammasomes) to begin to produce numerous proteins involved in inflammation and tissue repair. And I believe that can be painful. And I also believe that how you are using Curcumin is going to be different based on what you are trying to heal with it.

Studies about how use of Curcumin is helping people

What the studies say are the following:

"Curcumin can inhibits this special inflammatory chemical (NF-kappaB). Skeletal muscle is often the site of tissue injury due to trauma, disease, developmental defects or surgery.  If you ask around you can see that  so far there is no effective treatment out there to stimulate the repair of skeletal muscle. Yet studies show that muscle regeneration after trauma is greatly enhanced following systemic administration of curcumin, an inhibitor of the NF-kappaB."

This is my belief {please consult your doctor specific own medical advice as I am not a doctor} is for a lot of us with serious painful trauma that is many years old, a little may Empower be better than a lot because a) with an older injury healing could initially be just as painful as the injury is, and b) you may find that you aren't absorbing it.

So what to do with a long painful injury? A paper from Korea published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (a very highly regarded journal) indicated that curcumin has been reported to be capable of preventing the death of neurons in animal models of neurodegenerative disease.

They studied the effect of curcumin on cultured neural progenitor cells (like stem cells) and found that curcumin exhibits a biphasic effect: at low concentration (0.1 to 0.5 microMolar) it stimulates cell growth and proliferation while at high concentration (>10 microMolar) it is cytotoxic (kills cells).

At the LOW concentrations, curcumin enhanced neurogenesis (nerve cell growth) in mouse hippocampus and increased neural plasticity (like adaptability) and repair. So maybe with nerve type damages you need to recommend a slow start to Empower.

So what if you aren't absorbing enough curcumin?

If you aren't absorbing enough curcumin that probably means you need to adjust a few things. If it's for a pain injury I recommend you up your omega's to about 2,000 mg a day for a few weeks. (when I say omega's I'm ALWAYS talking about Omega-3's) Earlier this month, review papers of the curcumin studies stated: “Extensive clinical trials over the past quarter century have addressed the efficacy of curcumin and promising effects have been observed in patients with various pro-inflammatory diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease and arthritis.”

A little off topic of injury these studies are being performed at Indiana University and Purdue university.

SO the findings are that when omega-3 DHA and curcumin are combined, they have the ability to slow down the growth of breast cancer cells. These compounds worked best when combined, than when tested separately.

The DHA+curcumin slowed down the growth of all five breast cancer lines. The genes that promote breast cancer development were deactivated, and the genes that suppress cancer cell development were activated. The reason these compounds worked so well together is because the DHA helped the breast cancer cells absorb the effects of curcumin. That's why off topic... the DHA was what HELPED the turmeric/curcumin be absorbed, which I'm seeing again and again.

To aid with the absorption of turmeric/curcumin take it with the supplement, or with the following foods:
1. Fatty wild fish like Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon, tuna, sardines, sablefish, anchovies, herring and mackerel, or a good Omega Supplement
2. Organic dairy products if you use dairy (think undenatured whey for your healthy dairy)
3. Oils with low omega-6 fat content such as coconut oil, organic olive oil and organic macadamia oil.

I recommend the Organic Fijian Turmeric product because it's all very easy to figure out as far as ingredients, and it says exactly what is in there. Just over $30 is an amazing deal for such a potent organic turmeric that you just can't pass up. I would say taking 1 - 4 turmeric/curcumin capsules with a green smoothie with your Paleo protein in the morning, and/or 1 - 4 capsules of turmeric/curcumin with a good salmon or large leafy green salad with flaxseeds and olive oil dressing in the evening for someone with an old injury may be the place to start to feel health empowering. They are saying 200 - 400 mg of turmeric/curcumin is a good place to start, and that's (1) capsule of the turmeric/curcumin, and that's if you are absorbing it, and if you do not have a very acidic stomach. {For those people you may want to also add some good enzymes and/or probiotics to your daily routine}

And with some of these other illnesses, more seems to work better. They are using upwards of 8,000 mg of turmeric/curcumin (with cancer) but not only with added omega's, but with added black pepper. (The recommended dose of curcumin of four a day is about 1400 mg a day) So you could use with this a good black pepper essential oil in a capsule with turmeric tea, Pepper when used when cooking your salmon up to help increase the properties of curcumin. Piperine is a pungent compound found in the fruit of the plants in the Piperaceae family, the most famous member of which is Piper nigrum, black pepper.

So remember, as with all of these products, it's not necessarily one size fits all, so think about what you nee, how the ingredients are working for you, and with any major questions please don't hesitate to ask.