Curcumin

Curcumin is poorly absorbed on its own. In human volunteers, 2 g of curcumin gave serum levels that were undetectable or very low, because it is rapidly metabolised in the liver and intestinal wall (Shoba 1998). Adding piperine from black pepper raised absorption by 2000% (Shoba 1998).

Its MMP13 research is all lab and animal work:

• In rat cartilage cells exposed to IL-1 beta, curcumin blocked NF-kB activation, lowered MMP13 and raised type II collagen (Wang 2017).
• Curcumin monoglucuronide, a curcumin metabolite, bound and blocked MMP13 and MMP-8 and protected cartilage in rats better than a specific MMP13 inhibitor drug (Roy 2025).
• With omega-3, curcumin lowered MMP1, MMP3 and MMP13 in human cartilage cells and conserved cartilage in rats (Jhun 2025).

No study on this site measured MMP13 in people taking curcumin.

Sources

1. Shoba G, Joy D, Joseph T et al. Influence of piperine on the pharmacokinetics of curcumin in animals and human volunteers. Planta Med 1998.
   PMID 9619120DOI 10.1055/s-2006-957450Our summary
2. Wang J, Ma J, Gu JH et al. Regulation of type II collagen, matrix metalloproteinase-13 and cell proliferation by interleukin-1β is mediated by curcumin via inhibition of NF-κB signaling in rat chondrocytes. Mol Med Rep 2017.
   PMID 28627596DOI 10.3892/mmr.2017.6771Our summary
3. Roy HS, Kulkarni C, Neethu KM et al. Curcumin monoglucuronide protects cartilage from progressive degeneration by blocking MMP-13. Arch Pharm Res 2025.
   PMID 40731199DOI 10.1007/s12272-025-01558-wOur summary
4. Jhun J, Lee D, Na HS et al. Curcumin and omega-3 ameliorate experimental osteoarthritis progression in terms of joint pain and mitochondrial dysfunction. J Inflamm (Lond) 2025.
   PMID 40665304DOI 10.1186/s12950-025-00453-xOur summary

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