The Influencer

Turmeric has made waves in so many areas, from pest control and crop growing to health foods and cancer research. Goh Yee Huay finds out how one French beauty brand is now using the spice to give us more youthful-looking skin.

Your favourite nasi biryani and chicken curry may not be the healthiest dishes around, but one element in them does you lots of good: turmeric.

A cousin of ginger distinguished by the brilliant yellow-orange colour of its rhizome, turmeric has been used for thousands of years in Asia. Its epithets range from “the spice of life” to “the golden goddess”, and it is said to have at least 53 names in Sanskrit alone, including gauri (to make fair), jayanti (one that wins over diseases) and vishagni (killer of poison).

Precious yellow gold

The list of uses for turmeric is as long as its list of names. Apart from being a popular spice and food colourant, it’s established in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine for treating ailments from asthma and allergies to an irritable bowel, gallstones, indigestion and liver diseases.

Not surprisingly, turmeric’s track record has attracted researchers of every stripe, including those for modern medicine. Thousands of studies have been carried out and published over the past few decades, revealing growing evidence that turmeric’s strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties hold immense potential for the treatment of various diseases.

Cancer research journal Carcinogenesis says studies show that curcumin – the substance that makes turmeric yellow – is a stronger antioxidant than vitamin E and may help to suppress cancerous mutations in genes. Another study published in the Journal of Neurochemistry found that when mice were treated with curcumin extract, symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in their brain tissue dropped by 30 per cent in just a week.