World Heart Day is observed on September 29 every year to increase awareness about heart diseases and related health issues. It also promotes preventive measures and lifestyle changes to avoid cardiovascular diseases.
Blood clotting is a necessary process. However, sometimes the blood clots too much, leading to health complications, which can even turn fatal. People suffering from certain medical conditions may also require blood-thinning drugs to reduce their risk of heart attack or stroke. Those with medical conditions like congenital heart defects may require blood-thinning medications to reduce their risk of heart attack or stroke. Curcumin, a compound found within turmeric, plays a pivotal role in slowing down blood clotting or thickening as the antioxidants in curcumin have been shown to attenuate adriamycin-induced cardiotoxicity and may prevent diabetic cardiovascular complications. The antithrombotic, anti-proliferative, and anti-inflammatory effects of curcumin and the effect of curcumin in decreasing the serum cholesterol level may protect against the pathological changes occurring with atherosclerosis.
How curcumin can prevent heart ailments
According to a research titled ‘Curcumin, the golden spice in treating cardiovascular diseases’ these are some of the ways curcumin can help in preventing cardiovascular diseases:
1. Aortic Aneurysm: It is a potentially dangerous condition that can cause death in the case of dissection or rupture. Key events involved in the development of aortic aneurysm are chronic inflammation, destructive connective tissue remodelling and a loss of smooth muscle in the aortic wall. Curcumin treatment(100mg/kg/day for 14 days) can reduce the increase in aortic diameter, improve the structural integrity of medical elastin and suppress pro-inflammatory molecules expression by blocking the activation nuclear factor kappa B(nf-kb-1) and active protein(AP-1), states research.
2. Atherosclerosis: It is a chronic and progressive problem of arteries that derives from inflammatory responses, oxidative stress and lipid deregulation and epigenetic disorders. According to research, the occurrence of hyperlipidemia induces the increase and disposition of oxidized low-density lipoproteins in the subendothelial area which in turn favours the development of atherosclerosis. It has been evidenced that curcumin possesses hypolipidemic effects, which together with its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity, can contribute to reducing the incidence of atherosclerosis.
3. Cardiovascular complication of Diabetes: Diabetic cardiomyopathy is characterized by cardiac structural and functional damage including myocyte hypertrophy, myocardial fibrosis and consequent heart failure, as per research. In STZ-induced diabetic rats, curcumin treatment (200 mg/kg/day, for 16 weeks) significantly reduced advanced glycation end products accumulation, inhibited myocardial dysfunction mainly by attenuating apoptosis and inflammation.
4. Myocardial infraction: It includes hypertension, dyslipidemia and diabetes mellitus. As an alternative and complementary medicine to enalapril, curcumin (50 mg/kg/day, for 6 weeks) offers synergistic action in increasing left ventricular fractional shortening and inhibiting perivascular fibrosis in MI rats, according to research. Moreover, curcumin could also inhibit cardiomyocyte apoptosis, fibroblast proliferation and collagen deposition.
5. Stroke: It results from the vascular and microvascular disease which causes the interruption of cerebral blood supply and consequently brain dysfunction, states research. Inflammation, apoptosis and oxidative stress are major concerns in stroke, as per another research. Interestingly curcumin is a well-established agent which is involved in anti-inflammation, anti-apoptosis and antioxidant.
The writer is the inventor of Snec30 and Managing Director of ARBRO Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd.