Around 25 years ago I injured my left leg, and around 10 years after that I developed severe pain and stiffness in my left knee, to the point where I could barely walk.
Turmeric was one among other natural methods I used to help relieve my knee pain and stiffness, to the point where I could live a normal life, and even run and sprint without experiencing any pain or stiffness whatsoever.
If it wasn’t for using natural methods like an anti-inflammatory diet, the right types of exercise, and natural remedies like turmeric, I’m pretty sure I would have had my knee replaced by now, or I’d be all drugged up, obese, miserable, out of work, and living on benefits.
Ever since I discovered the power of turmeric to reduce joint pain, I have recommended it to my patients, and to my friends and family, and they have benefited immensely.
What Turmeric Did For My Mother-In-Law's Strange Foot Pain
My mother in law had this strange foot pain that even the best doctors in the country couldn’t help her with. Her doctors gave her these powerful drugs with a long list of side-effects, and they did next to nothing to help her. I gave her some turmeric capsules, and within a few days her foot pain was much better, and it was completely gone in a few weeks.
Now, not everyone will benefit from turmeric in the same way my mother in law did, but I shared her story to illustrate how turmeric can work where conventional medicine does not.
Here’s What The Research Says On Turmeric For Joint Pain
More than 9,000 studies have been published on turmeric, which have discovered over 800 different conditions that it may be able to treat.
Of these conditions, the strongest evidence lies in turmeric’s ability to reduce joint pain and pain in general.
In a 2016 systematic review and meta-analysis, researchers found 7,770 studies looking at the effects of turmeric on joint pain. From these studies they selected and analysed 8 of the highest quality studies. On analysing these high quality studies (which were randomised clinical trials on humans), the researchers concluded that scientific evidence supports the efficacy of turmeric extracts in reducing joint pain.
4 of these studies compared turmeric extracts with conventional pain medication like ibuprofen and diclofenac, and all 4 studies found that turmeric extract was just as effective at relieving joint pain and stiffness as these conventional pain killers.
One of these studies compared a turmeric extract with the popular alternative therapy for joint pain, chondroitin sulphate, and found turmeric to be more effective.
On analysing these studies myself, I can see that turmeric extract was often found to be slightly more effective than ibuprofen and diclofenac, only the differences were not statistically significant, because the sample sizes were not big enough. I’m willing to bet future studies with larger sample sizes will show with more certainty, that turmeric is more effective than conventional pain killers.
One thing the studies haven’t looked at yet, is how turmeric compares to these drugs long term. As you’ll see below, while conventional pain killers may damage your joints over time, turmeric has countless other benefits on your joints that may protect your joints in the long-run. This means the difference between the effects of turmeric on your joints and the effects of conventional pain killers is likely to widen with time, with turmeric being considerably better for your joints than conventional pain killers.
More recently, in a 2019 randomised clinical trial, researchers in the Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences in India compared the effects of a turmeric extract vs. diclofenac on patients with joint pain. In this study, 139 patients were randomly allocated to one of two groups receiving either the turmeric extract or diclofenac.
By the end of the 28 day study, both groups experienced significant improvements in pain, stiffness, other symptoms, function in daily living, function in sport and recreation, and quality of life. The turmeric extract group did just as well as the diclofenac group.
As an added benefit, the turmeric extract had a WEIGHT LOWERING effect by day 28, while diclofenac did not. Also, 28% of the diclofenac group required anti-ulcer medication, while nobody in the turmeric extract group required it. On top of that, the diclofenac group experienced a wider range of more concerning side-effects, which the turmeric group did not experience, such as vomiting, abdominal pain, and upper respiratory tract infection.
Another recent 2019 clinical study compared the effects of a turmeric extract to ibuprofen in patients with joint pain, and found the turmeric extract to be just as effective as ibuprofen in relieving joint pain.
What Makes Turmeric Better For Joint Pain Than Conventional Pain Medication?
All the studies seem to show turmeric as being only just as good as conventional pain killers, but here are some reasons why I believe turmeric is actually better for your joints than conventional pain killers, especially if you take it long-term.
1. Turmeric provides the same level of pain relief as NSAIDS, but with a safer side-effect profile, so you can take it long-term.
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen and diclofenac, are the cornerstone of treatment for joint pain.
The trouble with NSAIDs is they have a dangerous side-effect profile.
I remember when I was in medical school, I was taught for a short while by this brilliant anaesthetic consultant. She told us that NSAIDs were responsible for so many deaths, that if it were up to her, she’d have them banned.
NSAIDs are thought to be responsible for over 2,000 deaths a year in the UK from gastrointestinal side effects alone. They are associated with a 3 to 5-fold increase in the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding. But they have other common life-threatening side-effects as well.
Taking even a very short course of NSAIDs gives you a 2-fold increased risk of heart attacks and stroke, and a 3-fold increased risk of acute kidney failure. These risks can go up massively if you are taking other drugs alongside them.
Also, the greater the dose and the longer you use it for, the more likely you are to suffer from a potentially life-threatening side-effect of using NSAIDs.
The big problem here is that you don’t take a short course of NSAIDs to cure your joint problem, the way you cure an infection with antibiotics. All NSAIDs do is relieve your joint pain while you are taking the drug. The moment you stop taking it, your pain will come back. That’s where turmeric comes in and blows NSAIDs out of the water.
Unlike NSAIDs, turmeric doesn’t have any serious side effects, so you can continue to take it for the rest of your life without experiencing any serious problems. On top of this, turmeric also has countless other health benefits. The over 9,000 studies on turmeric have found that it may improve heart health, gut health, brain health, may help improve your memory and mood, and so much more.
So unlike with NSAIDs, the longer you take turmeric, the more you are likely to benefit from it.
2. Turmeric may help protect your joints from further damage
Animal studies, in vitro studies, and small human trials have shown that turmeric may prevent further damage to your joints over time, thanks to its ability to inhibit the destruction of cartilage (human clinical trial, review).
NSAIDs on the other hand, may accelerate joint destruction over time. They are known to accelerate cartilage degradation, destroy the underlying bone, reduce joint space width, and increase the need for joint replacement.
Pharmaceutical drugs likes NSAIDs are isolated substances that have limited mechanisms of action – they do a few things very potently. Natural substances such as turmeric on the other hand, act holistically by bringing about change via countless different mechanisms of action.
NSAIDs for example, are very good at reducing inflammation. They have a few other actions on the body, most of which are harmful. Turmeric on the other hand, has thousands, perhaps millions of actions on the body, and we’ve only discovered a fraction of them. We know turmeric has an anti-inflammatory effect, which helps reduce joint pain, but unlike NSAIDs, turmeric also has multiple other protective effects on structures in your joints, such as on cartilage, tendons, synovium, and bone.
This is one reason why I believe that long-term use of turmeric would result in far better improvements in joint pain and overall joint health than would the use of conventional pain killers like NSAIDs.
3. Turmeric reduces oxidative stress
Oxidative stress damages your joints by itself, and it triggers inflammation. Inflammation also increases oxidative stress, so both are closely related.
Curcumin from turmeric is a potent antioxidant, which means it protects against oxidative stress. Studies have shown that curcumin inhibits oxidative stress injury to chondrocytes in joint cartilage. It does this not just by reducing inflammation, but also via multiple other mechanisms (4 of which are described in the above linked study).
NSAIDs on the other hand, are known to induce oxidative stress. In fact, increased oxidative stress is one mechanism via which NSAIDs increase the risk of heart attacks, stroke, and gastrointestinal bleeding.
4. Turmeric may help you lose weight
Weight loss plays a huge role in reducing joint pain, especially in weight bearing joints, but also in non weight bearing joints. Losing weight not only reduces joint load on weight bearing joints, it also reduces whole-body inflammation, thereby reducing inflammation in all joints.
Turmeric supports weight loss via multiple different mechanisms: it reduces insulin resistance, increases thermogenesis, prevents fat cell differentiation, causes fat cell apoptosis (cell destruction), and further reduces the formation of fat cells by preventing angiogenesis (the growth of blood vessels needed to support new fatty tissues in your body).
I told you above about a 2019 clinical trial that compared the effects of a turmeric extract with diclofenac on patients with joint pain. Not only was turmeric found to be just as effective as diclofenac at reducing joint pain, but turmeric also had a weight lowering effect while diclofenac did not.
A 2019 systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials looked more directly at the effect of turmeric extracts on weight loss:
On analysing 18 of the highest quality studies on the subject, the researchers concluded that intake of turmeric extracts was associated with a significant decline in body mass index, body weight, and waist circumference.
NSAIDs on the other hand, are well-known to cause weight gain through fluid and water retention.
The weight lowering effect of turmeric extracts is yet another reason why use of turmeric long-term is likely to be much better for your joints than using conventional pain killers.
5. Turmeric supports muscle growth and prevents muscle loss
Strong thick muscles around a joint help to support the joint by stabilising it and acting as shock absorbers. If your muscles are weak, your joint cartilage is exposed to more harmful loading.
People with chronic joint pain have smaller and weaker muscles surrounding that joint, and those muscles tend to get weaker with time. Thankfully, studies have found that turmeric extracts may prevent muscle wasting due to age , disease, and injury. Turmeric extracts can also help regenerate lost muscle after injury.
The research shows that muscle strengthening exercise relieves symptoms in patients with joint pain. Turmeric may help support your efforts at boosting muscle growth through exercise, by speeding up recovery following exercise, allowing you to train harder and more frequently.
There are no long-term studies to see if taking turmeric alongside a resistance training program would help further boost muscle growth. It would be interesting to see the results of such a study, knowing that turmeric extracts speed up post-exercise recovery and may prevent muscle loss and regrow lost muscle.
Long term studies like this have been done on NSAIDs. One study for example, found that taking ibuprofen reduces strength and muscle hypertrophic adaptations to 8 weeks of resistance training in young adults.
6. Turmeric may help heal tendons and ligaments
Tendons connect muscle to bone, and ligaments connect bone to bone. Both are crucial in maintaining joint stability, and damage to either is a common cause of both acute and chronic joint pain.
Preliminary animal studies suggest that turmeric extracts may improve tendon healing. Since tendon and ligaments are made of the same stuff – mostly type I collagen – it’s likely that turmeric extracts may also improve ligament healing.
Preliminary animal studies on NSAIDs on the other hand, suggest that NSAIDs may impair tendon healing. (Bittermann et al., 2018; Chechik et al., 2014).
7. Turmeric improves gut health
Gut health is closely linked to inflammatory disorders that cause joint pain and stiffness (Li et al., 2016).
Poor gut health resulting from our modern diets is a possible reason why we’re seeing such a huge rise in joint pain related disease in the modern day.
Increased intestinal permeability (or “leaky gut syndrome“) results in more microbes and antigens from your food entering your bloodstream through those leaks in your gut.
Studies have found that these microbes and antigens make their way to other tissues in your body, including your joints. Your immune system sees these foreign materials and attacks them, resulting in inflammation in your joints and damage to your joints over time.
Other problems in the gut, such as low microbial diversity, intestinal inflammation, and infection by pathogenic bacteria, may also be involved in worsening joint pain, or even causing common joint pain related disorders.
Studies have found that turmeric extracts may increase levels of healthy gut bacteria, improve gut barrier function, reduce intestinal inflammation, and eliminate pathogenic bacteria in the gut.
Compare this to the most widely known effect NSAIDs have on your gut – of potentially life-threatening gastrointestinal bleeding. Besides that, studies suggest NSAIDs may increase both intestinal permeability and intestinal inflammation, and that they may increase levels of pro-inflammatory bacteria in the gut.
The science on turmeric’s ability to reduce joint pain is very promising, but there isn’t yet enough evidence with large-scale long-term human clinical trials, to convince doctors and the medical establishment to embrace turmeric as a superior alternative to NSAIDs.
Unfortunately, since there’s not much profit to be gained from a natural substance like turmeric, it could be decades before these studies are done. Meanwhile, there’s enough scientific evidence of both efficacy and safety of turmeric, and enough anecdotal evidence for you to at least give turmeric a try and see how well it works for you.