2. Fights Fat
Your body contains two types of fat: brown fat and white fat. White fat stores energy while brown fat burns energy to produce heat. While brown fat improves health, white fat increases the risk of disease and is a sign of living an unhealthy lifestyle.
Curcumin enhances the expression of brown fat specific genes to support weight loss and improve brown fat/white fat ratio.
It also stimulates the production of new mitochondria by increases fatty acid oxidation, increasing protein levels of hormone-sensitive lipase and p-acyl-CoA carboxylase and increases the activity AMP-activated protein kinase.
These activities break down existing fat, suppress the production of new fat, and improves metabolism. As such, turmeric is a safe and effective weight loss booster (5).
3. Boosts the Immune System
Curcumin has the ability to modulate the activation of T cells, B cells, macrophages, neutrophils, natural killer cells, and dendritic cells to improve immune function. It can also stop the expression of various proinflammatory cytokines including TNF, IL-1, IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, IL-12, and chemokines (6).
Plus, turmeric contains antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal compounds.