Piperine potentiates the hypocholesterolemic effect of curcumin in rats fed on a high fat diet

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4061201/

Targeting cancer stem cells by curcumin and clinical applications. - PubMed - NCBI

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24463298

Curcumin is a well-known dietary polyphenol derived from the rhizomes of turmeric, an Indian spice. The anticancer effect of curcumin has been demonstrated in many cell and animal studies, and recent research has shown that curcumin can target cancer stem cells (CSCs).

Curcumin, a promising anti-cancer therapeutic: a review of its chemical properties, bioactivity and approaches to cancer cell delivery - RSC Advances (RSC Publishing)

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/ra/c3ra46396f#!divAbstract



The development of new anti-cancer treatments with greater efficacy and fewer side effects remains a significant challenge of modern scientific and medical research. Curcumin, a natural polyphenol found in the dietary spice turmeric, has been demonstrated to inhibit cancer cell survival and proliferation, and to induce apoptosis without promoting the development of side effects. However, due to its sparing solubility and low bioavailability, curcumin has not yet been clinically used to treat cancer.

Drug-Drug/Drug-Excipient Compatibility Studies on Curcumin using Non-Thermal Methods

Drug-Drug/Drug-Excipient Compatibility Studies on Curcumin using Non-Thermal Methods

Introduction

Curcumin is a hydrophobic polyphenol isolated from dried rhizome of turmeric (Curcuma Longa Linn & zingiberaceae family), which is responsible for various pharmacological activities including anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-viral and anti-inflammatory and expected to have medicinal benefits in arthritis, psoriasis, diabetes, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, cardiovascular diseases, multiple sclerosis, cancer and lung fibrosis.1,2 However, clinical usefulness of curcumin in the treatment of cancer is limited due to poor aqueous solubility, hydrolytic degradation in alkaline pH, metabolism via glucuronidation and sulfation in the liver and in intestine, and poor oral bioavailability. These limitations results in decreased therapeutic efficacy or absence of therapeutic efficacy in in-vivo studies.2 Though there are many novel approaches to overcome these limitations, nanotechnology (Particle size <1000 nm) is the most recent and offer significant improvement.3,4 Hence, to overcome these limitations we proposed to fabricate curcumin-piperine, curcumin-quercetin and curcumin-silibinin loaded polymeric nanoformulation. However, unfavourable combinations of drug-drug and drug-excipient may result in interaction, which leads to physical instability or chemical instability. Physical instability refers to changes in the characteristics of a drug that do not involve chemical bond formation or breakage in the drug structure, which can be identified by changes in the organoleptic parameters such as appearance, form etc. Chemical instability refers to changes in the chemical structure of the drug molecule resulting in drug degradation, reduced drug content and formation of other molecule such as degradation products. Both physical and chemical instability may cause safety concerns. Hence, a thorough drug-drug/drug-excipient compatibility study is mandatory.5 The present study was aimed to assess the physical and chemical instability of curcumin with various excipients to be used in the proposed nanoformulations.