Shop

Piperine Lifted Curcumin Bioavailability by 2000 Percent

Piperine is the pungent alkaloid of black pepper, Piper nigrum. Folli-Activ includes it next to curcumin from turmeric. The reason is a pharmacokinetic fact, measured in animals and in healthy volunteers, not a slogan about pepper in cooking. The study product was curcumin with or without piperine at stated doses. It was not a Folli-Activ capsule.

Why curcumin needs a partner

Anand, Kunnumakkara, Newman, and Aggarwal reviewed curcumin bioavailability. Curcumin, from turmeric, has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiproliferative, and antiangiogenic activity in the literature they surveyed. Phase I trials found it tolerated at 12 grams a day. Plasma and tissue levels stay low. The causes they list are poor absorption, rapid metabolism, and rapid elimination. The first method they name for raising bioavailability is an adjuvant, piperine, that interferes with glucuronidation. Glucuronidation is a conjugation step in the liver and the intestinal wall that tags curcumin for excretion. Block that step and more unchanged curcumin remains to be measured in serum.

The review lists other technologies after piperine: liposomes, nanoparticles, phospholipid complexes, and structural analogues such as EF-24. Those are different products. Folli-Activ uses the adjuvant that has a head-to-head volunteer comparison against curcumin alone. That comparison is Shoba's study.

The volunteer study, dose by dose

Shoba, Joy, Joseph, Majeed, Rajendran, and Srinivas ran the measurement. In rats, curcumin alone at 2 grams per kilogram produced moderate serum concentrations over about 4 hours. Piperine at 20 milligrams per kilogram, given with that curcumin dose, raised serum curcumin for 1 to 2 hours after dosing. Time to maximum concentration increased (P less than 0.02). Elimination half-life and clearance decreased (P less than 0.02). Bioavailability increased by 154 percent.

In healthy human volunteers the contrast was sharper. After 2 grams of curcumin alone, serum levels were undetectable or very low. The same 2 gram dose with 20 milligrams of piperine produced much higher concentrations from 0.25 to 1 hour after the dose. The comparisons were P less than 0.01 at 0.25 and 0.5 hours and P less than 0.001 at 1 hour. The increase in bioavailability was 2000 percent. At the dosages used, piperine enhanced the serum concentration, the extent of absorption, and the bioavailability of curcumin in both rats and humans.

The 2000 percent figure is a relative bioavailability result for 2 grams of curcumin plus 20 milligrams of piperine in that volunteer group. It is not a description of the milligram strength of curcumin inside a Folli-Activ capsule. Product information used for these essays names piperine and curcumin as ingredients and does not assign them the Shoba doses. Quoting 2000 percent without quoting 2 grams and 20 milligrams would mislead. Both numbers stay in the sentence. The rat figure, 154 percent, stays attached to rats. The human figure stays attached to humans. They are not interchangeable.

What piperine is doing in this formula

Folli-Activ is built as a system: DHT-pathway botanicals, inflammatory-pathway ingredients, a keratin cofactor, and an absorption partner. Piperine is the absorption partner for curcumin. Without it, the Shoba volunteers on 2 grams of curcumin had serum levels the assay barely detected. With 20 milligrams of piperine, the same curcumin dose became measurable and the bioavailability figure rose by 2000 percent. That is the job of this ingredient in the 10-in-1 list. Piperine is not in the bottle as a 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor, and this page does not assign it a hair-count percentage.

Black pepper on food is a dietary source of piperine. The study used a defined milligram dose of piperine with a defined gram dose of curcumin, taken together. The formula copies the pairing, curcumin plus piperine, rather than assuming culinary pepper will reproduce a 2000 percent pharmacokinetic result. The inflammatory reason curcumin is present at all is a separate paper: Philpott showed IL-1 and TNF-alpha stop human follicles in culture, and Aggarwal reports curcumin's anti-inflammatory activity through inflammatory cytokines. Piperine does not replace that biology. Piperine answers the blood-level problem.

Packs

Folli-Activ sells on this site as a 90-capsule bottle, brand MY NPM FOLLI-ACTIV. The packs are 1 bottle at RM169, 3 bottles at RM447, and 6 bottles at RM699 with free shipping. Checkout is by card. Curcumin from turmeric and piperine from black pepper are both in the capsule. The blood-level study is the reason they share the bottle.

Sources