The effects of highly bioavailable curcumin in downhill running-induced muscle damage model

ABSTRACT

Curcumin is a natural polyphenolic compound exerting antioxidative and anti-inflammatory effects on various tissues, including muscles. Nevertheless, its clinical usage has been limited because of its poor bioavailability. Thus, highly bioavailable curcumin, such as Theracurmin (CR-033P) composed of 36% crystalline curcumin, has been developed. This study investigated the antioxidant activity and muscle-protective effect of Theracurmin Super (TS-P1), a new formulation with 36% amorphous curcumin. TS-P1 and CR-033P demonstrated antioxidant activity in vitro. Compared with pure curcumin, orally administered TS-P1 or CR-033P (16.7 or 50 mg per kg of body weight) at one-third dose inhibited the elevation of plasma lactate dehydrogenase and creatine kinase levels in a mouse downhill running model, indicating superior muscle-protective effect. Particularly, TS-P1 showed better or equivalent effectiveness in restoring the activity of antioxidant enzymes including glutathione peroxidase and catalase, and in suppressing inflammatory responses. Therefore, formulation with amorphous curcumin is a promising strategy for curcumin-based supplements.

KEYWORDS:

• Amorphous curcumin
• muscle damage
• downhill running

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Handok Pharmaceuticals in Korea.

Disclosure statement

Sang-Heon Kim and Byoung-Gon Moon are employees of HANDOK Inc. The other authors declare no conflict of interest.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Yu Seon Kim: Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft. Bongki Cho: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation Data curation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration. Sang-Heon Kim: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Writing – Original Draft. Byoung-Gon Moon: Conceptualization, Resources, Writing – Review & Editing, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Yun-Il Lee: Conceptualization, Validation, Writing – Review & Editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

Data availability statement

The raw datasets used and/or analyzed are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Handok Pharmaceuticals.