Examining the antidepressant activity of curcumin

Curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric (Curcuma longa), could potentially contain therapeutic properties against major depressive disorder. This finding, which appeared in the journal Phytotherapy Research, was the result of a meta-analysis on the safety and efficacy of curcumin in addressing the condition.

• For the review, the authors used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) as a guideline for their search. The researchers looked at journals published from 1986 to 2016 in the following databases: PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, Evidence-Based Medicine Guidelines, DynaMed, JAMAevidence, and the Cochrane Library.
• The authors filtered their search by using the following keywords: curcumin, depression, MDD, efficacy, and effect.
• For a study to be enrolled in the review, it has to meet the criteria set by the authors. This meant that an article should be a human study, done using quantitative analysis, have an intervention and control group, use curcumin as an independent intervention, only address major depressive disorder, scale-based measurement of depression, and published in English.
• To determine study quality and overall rating of the methodology, the team used The Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies, which rated studies from strong (no weak ratings), moderate (one weak rating), or weak (two or more weak ratings).
• Data from included studies revealed that curcumin resulted in significantly higher reductions in symptoms of depression.

The researchers concluded that the administration of curcumin could improve the symptoms of patients with major depressive disorders.

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Journal Reference:

Al-Karawi D, Mamoori DAA, Tayyar Y. THE ROLE OF CURCUMIN ADMINISTRATION IN PATIENTS WITH MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER: MINI META-ANALYSIS OF CLINICAL TRIALS. Phytotherapy Research. 27 November 2015;30(2):175–183. DOI: 10.1002/ptr.5524