By Dr Conor Kerley, PhD, nutrition researcher, and someone who lives with an autoimmune condition himself.
Takayasu arteritis is one of the rarest conditions this series covers, and if you have it, you know exactly how little gets written for you. So here is what exists: one randomised, placebo-controlled trial of curcumin in people with Takayasu arteritis. That is the entire evidence base, laid out honestly.
Quick answer
- Takayasu arteritis is inflammation of the body's largest arteries. It mostly affects women under 40.
- One four-week placebo-controlled trial found curcumin improved symptoms and lowered inflammation on blood tests [1].
- The researchers put the effect down to curcumin reducing TNF, the same inflammation signal that some of the strongest arteritis drugs are designed to block.
- One small, short trial is a reason for interest, not a treatment decision. Nothing here replaces prescribed medication.
What Takayasu arteritis is
Your arteries are not supposed to be inflamed. In Takayasu arteritis, the immune system attacks the wall of the aorta, the body's main artery, and its major branches. The walls thicken and narrow, which is why the condition is sometimes called "pulseless disease": blood flow to an arm can drop enough that the pulse becomes hard to find. It is rare, it mostly starts in women under 40, and it is usually treated with steroids and immune-suppressing drugs.
One family of those drugs matters for this article: TNF blockers. TNF (tumour necrosis factor) is one of the immune system's loudest inflammation signals, and switching it off with medication helps in arteritis, as it does in rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease. The drugs work, and they carry well-known side effects, from infection risk to injection-site problems.
The trial
Curcumin quietens TNF in laboratory studies, which is exactly why researchers tried it here.
A 2017 randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial gave people with Takayasu arteritis either curcumin or placebo for four weeks alongside their usual care [1]. The curcumin group did better on three fronts:
- Symptoms. Scores on the Birmingham Vasculitis Activity Score, the standard measure of how active vasculitis is, improved.
- Inflammation. CRP and ESR, the two inflammation markers your rheumatologist checks in blood tests, both fell.
- TNF itself. Levels of TNF-alpha dropped, which supports the idea that curcumin was working through the same pathway as the TNF-blocking drugs.
The authors wrote: "The treatment outcome was greatly improved by curcumin administration probably due to its anti-TNF property."
What this does and does not mean
Be careful with a result like this. It is one trial. It ran for four weeks, in a condition that runs for years. It has not been repeated. And the people in it stayed on their normal treatment; curcumin was added, not swapped in.
So the honest reading is narrow but real: in the only controlled test to date, adding curcumin measurably calmed Takayasu arteritis over a month, through a mechanism that mainstream medicine already targets with far stronger drugs. That makes curcumin worth a conversation with your rheumatologist. It does not make it a treatment.
Why the form of curcumin matters
Plain curcumin is very poorly absorbed; most of a swallowed dose never reaches the bloodstream, let alone the artery wall. Nano-formulated curcumin shrinks the particles so far more of the dose gets in, which is why small nanocurcumin doses have matched or beaten gram-sized doses of plain curcumin in other conditions. The wider absorption story, and the trials behind it, are in our curcumin overview.
Frequently asked questions
Should I take curcumin instead of my medication?
No. In the trial it was taken alongside normal treatment, and there is no evidence for using it alone.
Is curcumin safe with steroids and immune-suppressing drugs?
The trial reported no safety problems over four weeks alongside usual care. Curcumin can interact with blood thinners and some other medicines, so tell your rheumatologist before starting anything.
Is turmeric in food enough?
No trial has used culinary turmeric. A teaspoon holds under 100 mg of poorly absorbed curcumin.
What about giant cell arteritis?
The trial above was in Takayasu arteritis specifically. Giant cell arteritis, the other major large-vessel arteritis, has no curcumin trial yet.
Where nanocurcumin fits in
Gold Standard Curcumin provides 80 mg of nanocurcumin per capsule. If you are thinking about it, bring this article, and the reference below, to your next appointment.
Related reading: Curcumin and autoimmune disease · Curcumin and rheumatoid arthritis · The curcumin overview
References
- Shao N, et al. Curcumin improves treatment outcome of Takayasu arteritis patients by reducing TNF-alpha: a randomized placebo-controlled double-blind clinical trial. Immunol Res. 2017. PMID 28349250.
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