it makes you recover faster but it also reduces the amount of muscle u make so u can workout more offten but from less inflammation etc ul get less muscle and be less swole. dont take it its cancer.
Please read the whole thread, this is something that has been debated in here in detail, my last post goes over this in some depth.
But lets discuss this further then.
Is it even inflammation that causes growth? The answer is, no, not strictly anyways. Cytokines are the what many refer to simply as "inflammation". They are not inflammation but a family of peptides that have either pro or anti inflammatory effects. Some of them help regulate satellite cell (muscle stem cell) activation and myogenesis (process of forming muscle tissue). The ones of greatest interest are referred to as myokines (cytokines produced by muscle tissue itself). Myokines regulate muscle growth and repair. Pro-inflammatory cytokines from other origins, such as infiltrating immune cells can help with muscle repair, but have yet to be implicated in growth alone. It worth repeating from previous post that muscle growth and repair use the same pathways, but are not the same thing. In fact, some research suggests they compete for the same pathways. It seems we can activate only so many satellite cells and only stimulate so much myogenesis between bouts of resistance training. Given this apparent limitation, if we have too much damage, these pathways will be prioritized for repair and NOT growth.
When you preform resistance exercise, a muscle contracts. These contractions, without damage can signal the production of interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-8 (IL-8), and some other ones I will not focus on now as they are not relevant to curcumin, IL-6 is the most important one for growth as an incivility to produce it is linked with less hypertrophy. These processes of production and not reliant of proinflammatory enzymes or signals like COX-1, COX-2, and Nf-kB. The mRNA of the muscle of IL-6 and IL-8 will go up and muscle concentrations will increase when muscle contract without damage. Blood levels are only a proxy for the content in the muscles as only under certain situations will the content in the muscle be released into the serum. Just because something can impact plasma levels of a cytokine does NOT mean it is also impacting the levels in the actual muscle.
Lets use an example to illiterate this further so we are all on the same page. Intra-wo carbs, this is a common practice by many to speed up recovery, but why? Surely you would not argue this practice would negatively impact growth? Guess what, intra-wo carbs reliably decreased post-wo plasma levels of IL-6. If we assume any lowering of a marker related to inflammation in the blood meant less growth, then this is bad right? Well, carbs intra-wo do NOT impact mRNA expression for IL-6 and thus muscle levels are maintained, but why are plasma levels lowered? Because IL-6 has MANY roles when released from muscle tissue. It works as an energy sensor during exercise to help us release stored substrates to fuel the activity we are doing. Since we are drinking carbs then we have no need for this function and thus less is released into the plasma. Ok this practice doesn't mean less growth as muscle levels of IL-6 are maintained. Then how does it help recovery? Well during muscle contractions, plasma IL-6 uptake into the muscle is increased. This means that the concentration of IL-6 in the muscle after exercise can be higher in someone who is lacking carbs compared to someone drinking them during the workout because they are not absorbing additional IL-6 from the plasma to add to what is produced and kept in the muscle itself. IL-6, has a reverse U-shaped curve for positive effects on muscle growth. This means that there is an optimal concentration that needs to be present for growth, below this, less growth, above this, less growth. Carbs during a workout can help keep us in an optimal range of muscle IL-6 levels, preventing levels from getting too high and leading to increased breakdown of muscle tissue as a result. So a change in blood cytokine levels is not always what it seems without understanding the mechanisms behind it. Now back to curcumin.
Next, several studies have shown that chronically elevated IL-6 levels lead to a loss of muscle tissue over time and less growth from resistance exercise. Healthy peaks after training are associated with better growth outcomes while having low baseline levels. Curcumin can definitely decrease IL-6 from various health conditions and immune cells, keeping baseline levels low, but has not been shown to impact IL-6 blood levels after exercise reliably at all, thus it is highly unlikely to impact mRNA levels in the muscle as a result. Kind of sounds like what we want in this case. This can also help with recovery as there would be less IL-6 at the start of a workout to be absorbed into the muscle, another way to regulate total IL-6 levels post-wo.
IL-8 plays a role in repair, as it signals the accumulation of neutrophils to the site of an injury. IL-8 is also know as
neutrophil chemotactic factor. It does this when released into the plasma after exercise. In the muscle it stimulates angiogenesis. IL-8 is only released into the plasma after exercise to signal neutrophils to infiltrate damaged tissues to produce inflammation, this helps clear away damaged tissue, there presence then signals a phase switch from prostaglandin (lipid compounds from arachidonic acid) to specialized pro-resolving mediator (lipid compounds primarily from epa/dha). The prolonging of neutrophil presence in muscle tissue after muscle damage can lead to what is known as post-wo secondary muscle damage as they will continue to breakdown tissues when unneeded, thankfully, curcumin can help signal the migration of neutrophils out of damaged tissues and help speed along this time line to help maintain the pros while minimizing the cons. Alongside with this, the inflammation produced by neutrophils signals the infiltration of macrophages. The specialized pro-resolving mediators signal for tissue repair, resolution of inflammation, production of anti-inflammatory interleukin-10 (IL-10), and for macrophages to phase switch from M1 to M2. M2 macrophages help with tissue repair and are associated with growth, likely because they increase the rate of recovery and thus less competition for signals related to growth. Increased phase switch and accumulation of M2 macrophages in muscle after exercise is actually one way the repeated bout effect works. If we do not have enough damage to warrant the release of IL-8 in plasma, then nothing down stream needs to happen as much. Curcumin decreases damage accumulated from resistance training by upregulating production of XIAP (inhibits muscle breakdown), thus we would expect to see less IL-8 in the blood after training, which we do reliably. But if the inhibiting of IL-8 in plasma is bad, we would also see a slower rate of repair, with curcumin we repeatedly see a decrease in the rate and severity of DOMS, declines in performance, and markers of muscle damage when curcumin is used in the days after muscle damaging resistance training. Curcumin also increases macrophage phase switch to M2, win-win for decreased damage and increased recovery rates.
Prostaglandins are associated with inflammatory processes, like cytokines are, they are of interest as their presence is linked with muscle repair and growth. They help signal protein synthesis. Except this is really only a function of PGF2a produced by the COX-1 and COX-2 activity that is increased in muscle tissue during resistance exercise. PGE2 is also produced by the same route, but it actually promotes muscle breakdown. Curcumin is very weak at inhibiting COX-1 and COX-2, it primarily works to regulate Nf-kB. It also inhibits (mPGES)-1 to specifically inhibit PGE2, not PGF2a. Its effects on Nf-kB, COX-1, and COX-2 are in relation to exercise is likely minimal at best since it does not impact protein synthesis or reliably decreases post-wo tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a) or IL-6 plamsa levels.
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) can generate damage that leads to the infiltration of immune cells like neutrophils and thus inflammation in the muscle as a result. We also discussed this is more a process of repair and not growth. ROS can also increase the ability of a muscle to contract leading to more satellite cell activation and IL-6 production by the muscle itself. This good for growth, but to much ROS can lead to much IL-6 and damage. ROS shares a similar reverse U-shaped curve to IL-6. The right amount can decrease damage accumulated from each contraction of a muscle, increases force output, increases rate of repair, and can signal hypertrophy. Curcumin does not blunt ROS directly but instead upregulates Nrf2. Nrf2 controls the rate of internal antioxidant production. Through this mechanism is regulated Nf-kB. This is one way curcumin regulates Nf-kB instead of strictly inhibiting it. Through its ability to upregulate Nrf2, curcumin can help manage ROS production to maximize the pros and mediate the cons. In fact, it can increase the rate of Nrf2 upregulation beyond exercise alone when combined.
To me, curcumin can prevent damage, improve recovery, and potentially improve muscle growth long-term as we can 1) do more work and 2) have less damage competing for adaptive signals. None of the proposed mechanisms of curcumin preventing growth play out mechanistically. I am egger to see some long-term data but I am highly optimistic.
Please let me know which key adaptive processes related to muscle growth and repair in the context of inflammation I missed and how curcumin negatively impacts it? I am open to learning more information.