Herbal Turmeric, a Natural and Potential Treatment of Uveitis with No Side Effects

By Kyle J. Norton

Uveitis is a type of eye inflammation, affecting the middle layer of tissue in the eyewall (uvea).

The condition has been found to onset suddenly and get worse quickly. Most common symptoms of uveitis are eye redness, pain, and blurred vision that can affect one or both eyes.

In some cases, patients with the condition also experience symptoms of light sensitivity, floaters and decreased vision.

If you have some of the aforementioned symptoms, please check with your doctor to rule out the possibility.

The exact cause of uveitis is unknown. However, some researchers suggested that people with a compromised immune system associated with inflammatory disease and infected diseases are at an increased risk of uveitis.

Other risk factors, epidemiologically such as eye injury, diseases that affect the eye such as diabetes are also found in the patients with uveitis.

Most cases of uveitis are treated by prescription eye drops in combination with anti-inflammatory medications. If all fail, surgery may be necessary.

Untreated uveitis has been found to induce complication of glaucoma, cataracts, optic nerve damage and retinal detachment.

Out of the prevalent factors of uveitis, some researchers suggested that aging associated with the weakened immune system may be the major factor that causes uveitis.

Dr, Marwan R. Abdulaal, the lead scientist said, "Uveitis is a vision-threatening inflammation of the eye that carries considerable morbidity. It is responsible for 10% of legal blindness in the United States and up to 25% in the developing world".

And. "The aging body has a changing response of the immune system, which might reflect a different pattern of uveitis in the elderly population".

Turmeric is a perennial plant in the genus Curcuma, belonging to the family Zingiberaceae, native to tropical South Asia.

The herb has been used in traditional medicine as anti-oxidant, hypoglycemic, colorant, antiseptic, wound healing agent, and to treat flatulence, bloating, and appetite loss, ulcers, eczema, inflammations, etc.

On finding a natural compound for the treatment of uveitis, researchers examined the effect on turmeric administered 4 h after induction of E. coli lipopolysaccharide-induced uveitis in rats.
Compared to the control group, turmeric showed significantly suppressed inflammation with a significantly lower mean clinical grade, histopathological grade, and aqueous humor (AH) protein level, second to the conventional medicine prednisolone.

The turmeric administered 4 h did not affect proinflammatory cytokines levels of TNF-alpha levels.

However, when the aqueous extract was administered starting from 3 days before induction of uveitis, treatment group not only showed a similar effect on the mean clinical and histopathological grade, as well as AH protein but also reduced TNF-alpha levels, comparable to treatment group.

Based on the findings, researchers said, "topically applied a standardized aqueous extract of C. longa suppresses endotoxin-induced uveitis in rats by reducing TNF-alpha activity".

In order to reveal more information about turmeric anti-uveitis property, researchers examined the anterior uveitis induced in rabbits by intravitreal injection of lipopolysaccharide from Escherichia coli after pretreatment with C. longa and B. aristata aqueous extracts.

According to the clinical and histopathologic grading, anterior segment inflammation in the control group was significantly higher compared to both the extract-treated groups.

More precisely, the inflammatory cell count in the control group was 30.75 cells/mL compared to 2.39 and 11.56 cells/mL in the C. longa- and B. aristata-treated groups, respectively.

Similarly, C. longa- and B. aristata-treated groups also exerted strong effects on the protein content and TNF-alpha level as of that on the aforementioned study.

Taken altogether, turmeric may be considered supplements for the prevention and treatment of uveitis, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

Intake of turmeric in the form of supplement should be taken with extreme care to prevent overdose acute liver toxicity.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Topically applied standardized aqueous extract of Curcuma longa Linn. suppresses endotoxin-induced uveal inflammation in rats by Agarwal R1, Gupta SK, Agarwal P, Srivastava S. (PubMed)
(2) The anti-inflammatory effects of Curcuma longa and Berberis aristata in endotoxin-induced uveitis in rabbits by Gupta SK1, Agarwal R, Srivastava S, Agarwal P, Agrawal SS, Saxena R, Galpalli N. (PubMed)
(3) Uveitis in the Aging Eye: Incidence, Patterns, and Differential Diagnosis by Marwan R. Abdulaal, Bachir H. Abiad, and Rola N. Hamam. (PMC)