About 34 percent of Americans have metabolic syndrome,¹ which is a term used to describe a cluster of symptoms that increases your risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and other chronic disease.

    Those symptoms include a large waistline, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, low levels of HDL cholesterol, and high levels of triglycerides. Though they may seem, at first, to be very different symptoms.

    They have a common underlying thread, as does metabolic syndrome and related heart disease… in a word “inflammation.” Chronic inflammation is associated with metabolic syndrome, with researchers in one journal noting:²

        “It has become evident that the inflammatory condition that is associated with obesity and overweight plays an important part in the aetiology of the metabolic syndrome and largely contributes to the related pathological outcomes.”

    It makes sense, then, that curcumin – one of the most potent anti-inflammatories in nature – would also help to lower inflammation in people with the disorder.

Daily Curcumin Lowers Inflammation and Blood Sugar Levels in People

    Researchers enrolled 117 people diagnosed with metabolic syndrome in a study to determine curcumin’s effects on inflammation. Curcumin is the active ingredient in the yellow curry spice turmeric. Half of the participants took one gram of curcumin powder daily for eight weeks while the other half received a placebo pill.

    At the end of the study, the curcumin group had lower levels of three blood markers of inflammation, including C-reactive protein (CRP), along with lower fasting blood sugar and hemoglobin A1c (a measure of longer term blood sugar levels).³

    For comparison, the placebo group had higher blood sugar levels and increased inflammation after the eight weeks. When the researchers evaluated eight previous studies, they, too, confirmed that curcumin lead to reductions in CRP levels.

    They concluded that short-term supplementation with bioavailable curcumin significantly improves oxidative and inflammatory status in people with metabolic syndrome, and could be regarded as a “natural, safe and effective CRP-lowering agent.”⁴