Section 3 Medicinal Herbs

#### **Chapter 6**

### Curcuminoids: The Novel Molecules of Nature

*Sitabja Mukherjee and Santosh K. Kar*

#### **Abstract**

Curcuminoids inactivate Nuclear Factor-Kappa B (NF-κB), a key pro-inflammatory transcription factor which is involved in inflammation and immune response in diseases like cancer. NF-κB activation is necessary to determine tumor microenvironment which controls migration and metastatis of cancer cells through chemokines and their receptors and involvement of some cell adhesion molecules. Therefore inhibition of NF-κB by curcuminoids could be a new approach in treatment of cancer by immune modulation. Curcuminoids are not bioavailable and therefore there were problems in efficacy. Now by using bioavailable curcuminoid formulations the problem has been resolved to a great extent. Out of 49 placebo controlled double blind clinical trials using curcuminoids, 17 have been found to be successful. Therefore curcuminoids could be developed as an adjunct therapy for diseases like cancer to save human life.

**Keywords:** Curcuminoids, Inflammation, Immunomodulation, Human clinical trial

#### **1. Introduction**

Curcuminoids are natural polyphenolic compounds present in the rhizome of *Curcuma longa* plant which are responsible for the yellow color of turmeric and it's medicinal properties [1]. Turmeric has been used for centuries not only to make Indian curry spicy but also for healing wounds, reducing pain and as antibacterial agent in our traditional system of medicine [2]. No one knew what component of turmeric was responsible for these medicinal properties till Vogel Peletier isolated the pigment from it in 1815 [3]. No structural studies could be done as the isolated pigment was found to be a mixture of oleoresin and oil. Finally Vogel A Jr. isolated the pure pigment in 1842 but he did not determine its structure [4]. After unsuccessful attempts by many chemists, Milobedzka J and Lampe V determined the chemical structure of curcumin to be diferuloylmethane and named it as curcumin in 1910 almost hundred years after it was first isolated in 1815 [5]. Later the same group synthesized the molecule in 1913 which established its structure firmly [6]. Subsequently K R Srinivasan developed chromatographic methods to separate curcumin and showed it to have three components [7, 8].

Using diverse extraction techniques and chromatographic methods which are coupled with sensitive mass spectrometric detection system to identify the extracted molecules we now know that turmeric contains atleast 235 specialized secondary metabolites which include 109 sesquiterpene and 68 monoterpene molecules besides the three Curcuminoid molecules which are the subject of discussion here [9]. The three molecules viz. Curcumin (which is the major Curcuminoid), demethoxycurcumin (DMC) and bisdemethoxycurcumin (BDMC) which are


