This is an additional discussion about the use of Curcumin, and in particular, Where it might be sourced from and Why?
Why are Bright Yellow curry dishes determined as being the best for one's health...?
Before we all race out and start taking Curcumin, this short piece might help make you a tad wiser decision about, where to source it from & why?
Best wishes
Steve
A longstanding problem"People are unknowingly consuming something that could cause major health issues," said the papers' lead author Jenna Forsyth, a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. "We know adulterated turmeric is a source of lead exposure, and we have to do something about it."
The first study, available online in Environmental Research, involves a range of analyses, including interviews with farmers and spice processors in several Bangladesh's districts, which together produce nearly half of the nation's turmeric. Many traced the issue to the 1980s when a massive flood left turmeric crops wet and relatively dull in color. Demand for bright yellow curry led turmeric processors to add lead chromate—an industrial yellow pigment commonly used to color toys and furniture—to their product. The practice continued as a cheap, fast way to produce a desirable color.
CONCLUSIONS"Unlike other metals, there is no safe consumption limit for lead, it's a neurotoxin in its totality," said the papers' senior author Stephen Luby, professor of medicine and the director of research for Stanford's Center for Innovation in Global Health. "We cannot console ourselves proposing that if the contamination were down to such and such level, it would have been safe."
Lead is a potent neurotoxin that irreversibly damages the brain and permanently lowers IQ (Budtz‐Jørgensen et al., 2013). Given this significant burden of lead exposure, interventions to reduce or prevent lead exposures are well worth the effort. Prior studies have indicated that turmeric is linked with lead exposure and contributes to elevated blood lead levels in rural Bangladesh (Gleason et al., 2014; Forsyth et al., 2018, 2019). We provide evidence of the structure of incentives that have perpetuated turmeric adulteration with industrial PbCrO4-based yellow pigments, resulting in elevated Pb- and Cr-levels in a spice that is consumed daily throughout Bangladesh and South Asia. Our results can be used to make progress on the path to Pb-free turmeric, a path that will likely require a combination of efforts to engage consumers, producers, and other stakeholders focused on food safety and public health. Since there has been extensive research into the health and developmental effects of Pb exposure for decades, we encourage future research to focus on developing, implementing, and evaluating interdisciplinary approaches to reducing exposure rather than simply generating more evidence highlighting the damage Pb is causing.
Please read the complete PDF file linked below:
REFERENCE
Forsyth et al. 2019. "Turmeric means“yellow”in Bengali: Lead chromate pigments added to turmeric threaten public health across Bangladesh" Environmental research, ISSN: 1096-0953, Vol: 179, Issue: Pt A, Page: 108722: DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2019.108722
https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/p ... 1956C16108