A quick tip to enhance your responses to bone broth (tea and shakes) is to add curcumin or tumeric. Tumeric is not water soluble and has poor bio-availability when taken orally. Collagen and gelatin as found in bone broth can actually form covalent bonds with tumeric and allow it to be water soluble and increase bio-availability, as this patent suggests:
This is good news as tumeric has anti-inflammatory effects in the human body but also, and probably more importantly, increases DHA (Omega 3 found predominantly in animal fats and seafood) in the brain (see below abstract). As everyone who knows us here at Dr Gus’ knows that we love DHA for its role in cell function and metabolism, without it we don’t work! Modern diets are low in DHA because we don’t eat enough seafood or collagenous foods. So this is a nice little hack to improve the function of your brain and body.
Dietary deficiency of docosahexaenoic acid (C22:6 n-3; DHA) is linked to the neuropathology of several cognitive disorders, including anxiety. DHA, which is essential for brain development and protection, is primarily obtained through the diet or synthesized from dietary precursors, however the conversion efficiency is low. Curcumin (diferuloylmethane), which is a principal component of the spice turmeric, complements the action of DHA in the brain, and this study was performed to determine molecular mechanisms involved. We report that curcumin enhances the synthesis of DHA from its precursor, α-linolenic acid (C18:3 n-3; ALA) and elevates levels of enzymes involved in the synthesis of DHA such as FADS2 and elongase 2 in both liver and brain tissues. Furthermore, in vivo treatment with curcumin and ALA reduced anxiety-like behavior in rodents. Taken together, these data suggest that curcumin enhances DHA synthesis, resulting in elevated brain DHA content. These findings have important implications for human health and the prevention of cognitive disease, particularly for populations eating a plant-based diet or who do not consume fish, a primary source of DHA, since DHA is essential for brain function and its deficiency is implicated in many types of neurological disorders.
