A Comparative Pharmacokinetic Assessment of a Novel Highly Bioavailable Curcumin Formulation with 95% Curcumin: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Crossover Study.

Objective: Curcumin exhibits many beneficial health-promoting characteristics. However, its poor oral absorption precludes its general use. This study assessed the bioavailability of a novel curcumin formulation compared to 95% curcumin and published results for various other curcumin formulations.

Methods: A randomized, crossover, double-blind, comparator-controlled pharmacokinetic study was performed in 12 healthy adult subjects to determine the appearance of free curcumin and its metabolites curcumin sulfate and curcumin glucuronide in plasma after a single dose of a novel proprietary curcumin liquid droplet micromicellar formulation (CLDM) and unformulated 95% curcumin powder in capsule form. An equivalent 400-mg dose of each product was administered. The 95% curcumin contained 323 mg curcumin, and the CLDM contained 64.6 mg curcumin. Blood samples were drawn and plasma was analyzed for curcumin and its 2 conjugates without enzymatic hydrolysis by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectroscopy.

Results: Plasma levels of curcumin sulfate and curcumin glucuronide after 1.5 hours from CLDM were approximately 20 and 300 ng/mL, respectively, whereas the levels for 95% curcumin were near baseline. Free curcumin reached a maximum level of 2 ng/mL for CLDM and 0.3 ng/mL for 95% curcumin at 1.5 hours. For the CLDM, a small secondary free curcumin peak occurred at 12 hours and a tertiary 1.5-ng/mL peak occurred at 24 hours. The total curcumin absorbed as represented by the area under the curve (AUC)/mg administered curcumin for CLDM was 522 times greater than for the 95% curcumin.

Conclusions: The novel CLDM formulation facilitates absorption and produces exceedingly high plasma levels of both conjugated and total curcumin compared to 95% curcumin. A comparison of the C/mg curcumin and AUC/mg of administered curcumin for CLDM with data from pharmacokinetic studies of various enhanced absorption formulations indicate that the greatest absorption and bioavailability are produced with the novel CLDM formulation.