Is Curcumin Effective in Reducing Pain in Arthritis Patients?

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the selective EBM review is to determine whether or not, “Is curcumin effective at reducing pain in arthritis patients?” STUDY DESIGN: Review of three, double blind, randomized controlled trials (RCTs), published between 2012 and 2014, all in English language. The articles compared oral curcumin to visually matched placebo or accepted standard treatment. DATA SOURCES: Three RCTs were found using PubMed. All articles were published in peerreviewed journals and selected based on correlation to topic choice, date of publication, and evaluating POEMs. OUTCOMES MEASURED: Patient reported pain level, as measured by visual analog scale (VAS) score. RESULTS: All three studied demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in patients’ pain levels in the curcumin group versus the control group. Chandran et al reported a mean change in baseline pain of 59.9% in the curcumin group, as compared to 49.94% in control group. Nakagawa et al also demonstrated a statistically significant change in mean from baseline between curcumin treatment and placebo. Panahi et al similarly found a post-treatment reduction in VAS to be statistically significant between curcumin and placebo. CONCLUSION: Based off the data collected from the three RCTs, curcumin is effective in reducing arthritis pain in patients

3D structures of individual mammalian genomes studied by single-cell Hi-C

The folding of genomic DNA from the beads-on-a-string like structure of nucleosomes into higher order assemblies is critically linked to nuclear processes. We have calculated the first 3D structures of entire mammalian genomes using data from a new chromosome conformation capture procedure that allows us to first image and then process single cells. This has allowed us to study genome folding down to a scale of <100 kb and to validate the structures. We show that the structures of individual topological-associated domains and loops vary very substantially from cell-to-cell. By contrast, A/B compartments, lamin-associated domains and active enhancers/promoters are organized in a consistent way on a genome-wide basis in every cell, suggesting that they could drive chromosome and genome folding. Through studying pluripotency factor- and NuRD-regulated genes, we illustrate how single cell genome structure determination provides a novel approach for investigating biological processes