By Dr. Sean M. Wells, PT, DPT, OCS, ATC/L, CSCS, CNPT, Cert-DN

In prior blog posts we have talked about turmeric and its amazing benefits for arthritis. As Modern Doctors of Physical Therapy, we know that combining nutrition interventions with our manual therapy, exercise, and dry needling can make an even bigger impact than simply traditional therapy alone. Well, there’s good news about spices: a large meta analysis of meta analyses has shown that turmeric can help our clients with osteoarthritis and osteopenia. This meta analysis is significant as it is the first to our team’s knowledge looking at turmeric for those with osteopenia. 

A New Study

This mega meta-analysis pooled data from 11 previously published meta-analyses on the effects of curcumin on OA. The analysis showed that curcumin supplementation significantly decreased the following physical therapy and arthritis scores compared to placebo:

• Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for pain
• Western Ontario and McMaster Universities ...