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CHAPTER 4
Curcumin, Chronic Pain
and Arthritis
V
irtually all of us experience occasional joint and back pain.
With luck, it goes away with time, rest and perhaps an occa-
sional ice pack. Sometimes it does not.
Each year, about 30 million of us visit a doctor complaining of
joint pain. Another 40 million or so visit a doctor looking for relief
from back pain. Add in 1.5 million people with rheumatoid arthri-
tis, 6.1 million with gout, 5 million with fibromyalgia and 1.5 mil-
lion broken bones suffered every year by people with osteoporosis
and you’ll see the magnitude of this painful problem.
Long-term musculoskeletal pain affects your entire being. It
drains your energy and contributes to chronic stress, a condition
that has myriad negative side effects, including obesity, metabolic
disorders, heart disease and perhaps even cancer. Chronic pain is
often linked with depression. Who wouldn’t be depressed in the
face of unrelenting pain?
Joint pain and back pain are most often caused by deterioration
of the cartilage that cushion joints (including the spaces between
the vertebrae, causing back pain), causing bone to rub against bone
and resulting in inflammation and pain. This can be caused by an
injury, but most often, it is the result of 40, 50, 60 years or more
of wear and tear on the joints.
For most of us, our first remedy is to reach for aspirin, ibupro-
fen or naproxen. That can be a fatal mistake. NSAIDs (non-
steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) like aspirin, ibuprofen and
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