The spice I take in a pill to keep my weight off: Like many doctors, I thought the claims about turmeric were rubbish but now we’ve all been proven wrong… and it can even stop your post-Mounjaro side effects: DR ROB GALLOWAY

Sometimes a new bit of research appears and barely causes a ripple. Then another study comes out, confirms the effect, and suddenly you look back at the first one with new eyes. Only when you connect the dots do you realise, we might have missed something important.

That’s exactly what’s happening with turmeric, with evidence emerging showing that it could be the everyday spice that might quietly help you lose weight.

Turmeric – the golden spice often used in curries – has long been part of traditional medicine in India and South-east Asia. Its active ingredient, curcumin, has been studied for decades.

But most doctors, myself included, filed it under the ‘sounds interesting, but probably doesn’t work’ category, the sort of thing more likely to be pushed by quacks than to appear in serious medical journals.

Now, though, two major reviews – the gold standard of research which brings together the results of multiple smaller studies – suggest turmeric really may help in the fight against two of the biggest problems we face: obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The most recent study, published in Nutrition & Diabetes in August, analysed the results of 20 trials of people with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes, nearly 1,400 patients in all, and found that those given a daily turmeric or curcumin supplement lost about 2kg, with waistlines shrinking by 2-3cm over the eight to 30 weeks of the various trials.

Two years earlier, another team led by academics in Iran published a review pooling 60 trials, involving nearly 3,700 people, and found a similar pattern of modest weight loss.

This earlier research was published in the journal Phytotherapy Research, which specialises in studies of plant-based medicines and while it’s well regarded in that field, it’s relatively specialist, which probably explains why the study didn’t get the wider attention it deserved.

A study found that those given a daily turmeric or curcumin supplement lost about 2kg, with waistlines shrinking by 2-3cm over the eight to 30 weeks

As to how turmeric might help: curcumin, the active compound in turmeric, appears to act like a metabolic switch. It switches on an enzyme called AMPK – a sort of master regulator found in many tissues, including muscle, fat and the liver. And when AMPK is switched on, cells stop storing fat and instead start burning it for energy.

There’s also evidence that curcumin may increase the activity of brown fat – the ‘good’ fat that burns calories to make heat, in a process called thermogenesis. Babies are born with plenty of it to help keep them warm, but adults retain only small amounts, mainly around the neck and spine.

Some studies suggest curcumin may stimulate thermogenesis further, possibly by influencing genes such as UCP-1, a protein inside brown fat that acts like a switch, making the ‘batteries’ in the cells (the mitochondria) release energy as heat instead of storing it. That means the body burns off more energy as heat, rather than storing it as fat.

Alongside this, curcumin reduces the low-grade inflammation that builds up inside fat tissue and is a big driver of insulin resistance (which means your cells aren’t as efficient at taking up the sugar from the blood, leading to type 2 diabetes).

But most doctors, myself included, filed turmeric under the ‘sounds interesting, but probably doesn’t work’ category, writes Dr Rob Galloway

And there’s more: curcumin also reins in enzymes in the liver that churn out new fat, and may even help stop immature fat cells maturing into fully fledged ones.

Together these effects may not strip the pounds off overnight, but they tip the balance away from fat storage and towards a healthier metabolism.

So how much turmeric do you need?

The 2023 study didn’t just look at weight. It also measured two key hormones – which are crucial to controlling how much we weigh.

The first, adiponectin, helps the body control blood sugar and higher levels are found in people who are slimmer. Turmeric made those levels go up.

The other hormone, leptin, which normally tells the brain when we’ve got enough fat stored, however in obesity, the brain has stopped listening. With turmeric, leptin levels came down – but the key is, only at doses you’d get from a supplement. 

There’s another catch.

Curcumin is poorly absorbed. Swallow a spoonful of turmeric and most of it goes straight through you.

But add black pepper, with its active compound piperine, and blood levels rise 20-fold. That’s why many supplements combine the two – and why traditional cooking often did the same, long before we had the science.

What if you’re not diabetic or pre-diabetic? The research shows the same benefits were seen in ordinary overweight adults.

And turmeric’s benefits may not stop at weight control. Studies suggest it has anti-inflammatory properties, which is why some patients take it for arthritis pain.

It might help gut health, possibly mood and brain function too, though the evidence there is still early.

Turmeric isn’t a miracle diet pill – if you live on takeaways and sugary drinks, it won’t rescue you.

But if you’re trying to live healthily, adding turmeric could be another small nudge in the right direction – the cumulative effect of little things is what keeps weight steady over the years when middle-age spread would otherwise start to take over.

That’s why I’ve started sneaking it into my own diet – you could try adding it into your cooking; turmeric tea in the afternoon; a pinch stirred into yoghurt; add it to scrambled eggs or soups.

And I take a daily turmeric and black pepper supplement (a 1g pill).

There are caveats: side-effects such as stomach upset and itching were reported in some trials, though this was rare. And it can interfere with some medications – particularly blood thinners, diabetes treatments, and drugs processed by the liver – so anyone on regular prescriptions should check with their doctor before starting high-dose supplements.

But turmeric is otherwise safe for most people, cheap and widely available.

And for those coming off the fat-fighting jabs such as Mounjaro, it might be one of the small, everyday steps that helps maintain your progress. 

Time to ‘spice up your life’?