Curcumin and Androgen Receptor

Diet and Nutrition
1

I’m currently part of a research group investigating curcumin supplementation and cardiovascular risk factors and among other very interesting effects of this extract I found a certain amount of research pertaining to reduce expression and activation of the androgen receptor. Some of the papers were specific in talking about the AR in prostate cells

http://www.charakinternational.com/pdfs/article5.pdf

However others were unspecific about which cell lines and tissue types were affected. Can anyone clarity whether this action is widespread or localised to the prostate tissue, as it would be a relatively undesired effect in some other tissues.

Thanks for your help on quite a specific problem

2

[quote]7lucky7 wrote:
I’m currently part of a research group investigating curcumin supplementation and cardiovascular risk factors and among other very interesting effects of this extract I found a certain amount of research pertaining to reduce expression and activation of the androgen receptor. Some of the papers were specific in talking about the AR in prostate cells

http://www.charakinternational.com/pdfs/article5.pdf

However others were unspecific about which cell lines and tissue types were affected. Can anyone clarity whether this action is widespread or localised to the prostate tissue, as it would be a relatively undesired effect in some other tissues.

Thanks for your help on quite a specific problem[/quote]

What “research group” are you part of?

3

<—Takes a second look at my bottle of Curcumin 500 that arrived today?

4

I will look into it further.

In the meantime, I have to say that personally (though a single case proves nothing) I certainly never perceived any antiandrogenic effect either with regards to sex drive or lifting; if there were an adverse effect of this sort it certainly would seem that the EliteFTS guys would have picked it up as having androgen receptors downregulated ought to give noticeable adverse effect in experienced powerlifters, who also are very good at picking up what changes are occurring in themselves with regard to strength; and it doesn’t seem that any customer has noticed anything adverse here either.

Thus, in practice there certainly doesn’t seem to be an adverse effect with regard to muscle, lifting performance, or sexual performance.

We could also consider the long history of use in East Indian medicine, which generally has been remarkably good at picking up even rather subtle effects of herbs. Turmeric has no reputation for being anti-sexual.

On the other hand, various health benefits are well-documented, and some find it quite beneficial in dealing with the wear and tear of lifting.

5

I’m writing a dissertation and collecting research data for a double blind placebo controlled 6wk study on the effect of curcumin cardiovascular risk factors in healthy (ish) young adults. CRP, various cholesterol levels, body measurements/stats etc. Hopefully get it published if my write-up is of the stadard

I wasnt primarily thinking about it from a negative perspective of reducing AR’s in muscle, but more a positive one as reducing AR’s strictly in the prostate would be a very useful effect of this drug which hasnt been well publicised.

Just as an aside, the list of beneficial effects of curcuminoids is very very impressive and would recommend the meta-analysis/review by Aggarwal 2008 for a very comprehensive overview if anyone else has access. In rat tissue its been shown to not only prevent, but also reverse (induced) pathogenic cardiac hypertrophy! as well as preventing atheroscleritic plaques and having its well known anti-inflammatory effect. now that is impressive.

thanks for your help

6

[quote]7lucky7 wrote:

Just as an aside, the list of beneficial effects of curcuminoids is very very impressive and would recommend the meta-analysis/review by Aggarwal 2008 for a very comprehensive overview if anyone else has access. In rat tissue its been shown to not only prevent, but also reverse (induced) pathogenic cardiac hypertrophy! as well as preventing atheroscleritic plaques and having its well known anti-inflammatory effect. now that is impressive.

thanks for your help[/quote]

Here’s a link to BB Aggarwal et al review in PDF published in Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 2009 ; 41(1): 40â??59. doi:10.1016/j.biocel.2008.06.010:

7

[quote]7lucky7 wrote:
I’m writing a dissertation and collecting research data for a double blind placebo controlled 6wk study on the effect of curcumin cardiovascular risk factors in healthy (ish) young adults. CRP, various cholesterol levels, body measurements/stats etc. Hopefully get it published if my write-up is of the stadard

I wasnt primarily thinking about it from a negative perspective of reducing AR’s in muscle, but more a positive one as reducing AR’s strictly in the prostate would be a very useful effect of this drug which hasnt been well publicised.

Just as an aside, the list of beneficial effects of curcuminoids is very very impressive and would recommend the meta-analysis/review by Aggarwal 2008 for a very comprehensive overview if anyone else has access. In rat tissue its been shown to not only prevent, but also reverse (induced) pathogenic cardiac hypertrophy! as well as preventing atheroscleritic plaques and having its well known anti-inflammatory effect. now that is impressive.

thanks for your help[/quote]

It may take a little while, so I hope it will still be in time for your purpose. The reason is that the main article that I want to read (but there are a number actually) is available only for pay over the Internet, so therefore I plan to read it, and others, on my next trip to the University of Florida. While that may sound cheap of me, actually the policy of avoiding paying for reading papers adds up to quite a lot of savings over the course of a year.

8

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:

[quote]7lucky7 wrote:
I’m writing a dissertation and collecting research data for a double blind placebo controlled 6wk study on the effect of curcumin cardiovascular risk factors in healthy (ish) young adults. CRP, various cholesterol levels, body measurements/stats etc. Hopefully get it published if my write-up is of the stadard

I wasnt primarily thinking about it from a negative perspective of reducing AR’s in muscle, but more a positive one as reducing AR’s strictly in the prostate would be a very useful effect of this drug which hasnt been well publicised.

Just as an aside, the list of beneficial effects of curcuminoids is very very impressive and would recommend the meta-analysis/review by Aggarwal 2008 for a very comprehensive overview if anyone else has access. In rat tissue its been shown to not only prevent, but also reverse (induced) pathogenic cardiac hypertrophy! as well as preventing atheroscleritic plaques and having its well known anti-inflammatory effect. now that is impressive.

thanks for your help[/quote]

It may take a little while, so I hope it will still be in time for your purpose. The reason is that the main article that I want to read (but there are a number actually) is available only for pay over the Internet, so therefore I plan to read it, and others, on my next trip to the University of Florida. While that may sound cheap of me, actually the policy of avoiding paying for reading papers adds up to quite a lot of savings over the course of a year.[/quote]

Thats pretty reasonable, when a paper isnt available through our University access as a skint student i die a little inside. And we’re only just starting the 6wk intervention next week so no big deal really, its not essential to this study, was just a very interesting feature i’d never read anything about. Can you give me the name/author of the article so i can see if i can access it?

9

For some reason, my reply with the papers has disappeared. It’s a little late tonight: I’ll repost it tomorrow.

10

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
For some reason, my reply with the papers has disappeared. It’s a little late tonight: I’ll repost it tomorrow.[/quote]

Any chance of a repost bill? My exams are over so can begin on my dissertation now

11

I’ll make sure to do it today. Sorry about the delay. (I suppose it was just a little frustrating to have done it already and then have it disappear.)

12

The reference I’m principally wanting is:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/hj424276071j3226/
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2007;595:127-48.
Modulation of transcription factors by curcumin.
Shishodia S, Singh T, Chaturvedi MM.

Others that may well be of value and which I will be getting are:

Cancer Biol Ther. 2008 Sep;7(9):1427-35. Epub 2008 Sep 4.
Androgen responsive and refractory prostate cancer cells exhibit distinct curcumin regulated transcriptome.
Thangapazham RL, Shaheduzzaman S, Kim KH, Passi N, Tadese A, Vahey M, Dobi A, Srivastava S, Maheshwari RK.

J Androl. 2008 Nov-Dec;29(6):661-8. Epub 2008 Jul 31.
Curcumin blocks the activation of androgen and interlukin-6 on prostate-specific antigen expression in human prostatic carcinoma cells.
Tsui KH, Feng TH, Lin CM, Chang PL, Juang HH.

Acta Pharmacol Sin. 2007 Mar;28(3):423-30.
Curcumin downregulates homeobox gene NKX3.1 in prostate cancer cell LNCaP.
Zhang HN, Yu CX, Zhang PJ, Chen WW, Jiang AL, Kong F, Deng JT, Zhang JY, Young Cy.

Int J Oncol. 2002 Oct;21(4):825-30.
Curcumin down-regulates AR gene expression and activation in prostate cancer cell lines.
Nakamura K, Yasunaga Y, Segawa T, Ko D, Moul JW, Srivastava S, Rhim JS.

13

The last 4 i can access but unfortunately not the first one through either of my Universities. I’ll have a browse later. Thanks again Bill

14

Sure thing!

Hopefully I can get to the library myself next week, though I’m not positive that will be the case.

15

By the way, that first one is really a chapter of a book. You may find that while it is not accessible online at your library, the actual book may be on the shelves.

16

No unfortunately not.

17

more bad news for curcumin and muscle building?

Its got amazing benefits in other areas, but muscle building appears to be dubious