In this product review article I evaluate 1MD’s CurcuminMD® Plus, which was formerly known as Advanced Turmeric Curcumin x285.
Longvida® makes this turmeric supplement unique
CurcuminMD Plus is formulated differently than many of the turmeric curcumin supplements you’ll come across in the marketplace, and I’ll share the nutrition science research I found regarding the ingredients 1MD uses.
Science resources included
As is my custom here on heydayDo, I will provide links to all of the relevant sports science and medical resources, clinical studies, & nutritional data used in this article.
CurcuminMD Plus summary
* CurcuminMD Plus is a turmeric curcumin supplement that is based on the unique formula Longvida®, developed by a neurology team at UCLA focused on Alzheimer’s disease. (4)
* Longvida® has repeatedly demonstrated it can avoid the blood-brain barrier problems that even enhanced absorption curcumin products encounter. (5)
* 1MD’s CurcuminMD Plus was developed by a team of reputable physicians, each with their own medical practice in the Los Angeles area.
* CurcuminMD Plus is currently more expensive than other popular pure Longvida curcumin products, because it also contains the proven anti-arthritic Boswellia extract.
Supplement hype vs. facts
A brief reality check if I may, always a good thing when wandering down the health & fitness supplement aisles…
Supplements are regulated far less intensely than are pharmaceuticals by the FDA. (1)
No surprise then that it has become a huge & profitable industry, with an estimated sales of over $123 billion back in 2019 & $olid growth projected over the next $everal year$. (2)
Manufacturers of all stripes are marketing all sorts of concoctions at us, even as research shows that many supplements don’t do a dang thing to improve our health. (3)
Due diligence is good for things we swallow
Thus I think it’s real important to parse through as much relevant information as we can when it comes to health & fitness supplements we’re considering taking.
Especially with social-trending products like turmeric curcumin supplements, where marketers make a lot of bold (& sometimes unfounded) statements about the great health benefits that come in their bottle.
Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
CurcuminMD Plus review topics
All this to say I’ll cover a bit of ground in this product review of the 1MD turmeric curcumin supplement, CurcuminMD Plus.
Here are some of the areas we’ll be looking at:
- Supplement Facts / Ingredients
- Dosage strength
- Certifications & manufacturing quality
- Pricing vs. competitors
- Buyer reviews
- Company background
Advanced Turmeric Curcumin x285…
…is no longer the name for 1MD’s flagship turmeric curcumin supplement.
It has been renamed CurcuminMD Plus, which is a lot easier to say & remember than “Advanced Turmeric Curcumin x285”, and the name fits in line with some of the other health products the company sells:
LiverMD – Liver cleanse
GutMD – Digestive tract health
BiomeMD – Probiotics for women
MoveMD – Joint relief
ProstateMD – Prostate health
Where to buy Advanced Turmeric Curcumin x285
Although 1MD has changed the name of Advanced Turmeric Curcumin x285 to CurcuminMD Plus, bottles with the old name may still pop up on Amazon through third-party resellers.
My 2¢ opinion: 1MD changed this product’s name to CurcuminMD Plus a couple of years ago. Anyone selling a bottle with the old “Advanced Turm…” name on it is trying to dump stale supplements on you.
Bottles with the current, rebranded CurcuminMD Plus name are available on both Amazon and 1MD.org.
Just note that their prices on Amazon are much higher than what 1MD is selling them for on their website, if you buy more than a single bottle or sign up for their auto-ship program.
CurcuminMD Plus buyer ratings
Almost all of 1MD’s product line (over twenty supplements) is sold exclusively on their website or on Amazon, the small exception being the stray online reseller here & there.
And all of their products have very good to excellent ratings from their purchasers, and 1MD’s CurcuminMD Plus is no exception.
CurcuminMD Plus
4.7⭐ – 90% 4 & 5-star ratings, 800+ buyer reviews
Check price & buyer reviews on Amazon
Know your turmeric supplements well?
We’re about to dive into the meat ‘n taters part of the CurcuminMD Plus review, and if you’re brand new to turmeric curcumin extract supplements some of the info I present might be unfamiliar to you.
So…
…down in the last part of this article I’ve prepared a section called Crash Course in Turmeric Supplements, <<< & that’s a link to it.
It has all the essential facts to get anyone who doesn’t know anything about turmeric supplements up to speed in just a couple of minutes, and them blue words will take you there.
When you’re done, there’s a link that’ll bring you back up here.
CurcuminMD Plus ingredients & doses
Let’s get into what’s in CurcuminMD Plus and how much of each ingredient there is in a daily serving.
Here’s a look at the CurcuminMD Supplement Facts label:
Nice & simple with just these two ingredients:
*Longvida®
This is the patented curcumin formula I mentioned earlier.
If you’re unfamiliar with Longvida, I go into detail about both the science behind it & the clinical research that’s been done on it in my article 4 Best Longvida Optimized Curcumin Brands here on heydayDo.
DOSAGE:
A single serving of CurcuminMD Plus delivers 400 mg of Longvida, which provides 80 mg of curcumin.
This might seem on the light side if you’re familiar with the top-quality curcumin supplements on the market today.
A couple of them deliver doses of 1000 mg of enhanced-absorption curcumin, which is well within the dosing range used in successful curcumin clinical trials that are based on turmeric extract formulas made with absorption-enhancing black pepper extract. (17)
Turmeric extract doses from black pepper-enhanced curcumin supplements.
However…
Longvida has a completely different mechanism of action than these ‘regular’ turmeric extract formulas, so those curcumin dosage numbers do not apply to Longvida at all.
*Boswellia Serrata Extract
This has been standardized to 65% purity strength, which is well within the bounds of a high quality boswellia extract.
DOSAGE:
A serving of CurcuminMD Plus has 333 mg of Boswellia extract in it, so when standardized to 65% it delivers about 220 mg per daily dose.
The Arthritis Foundation provides a very wide dosing range for boswellia’s use in treating osteoarthritis &/or rheumatoid arthritis, and CurcuminMD Plus’s 220 mg per day is right in the middle of their acceptable range.
Let’s now go over Boswellia & Longvida in more detail.
CurcuminMD Plus Ingredient #1
What is Boswellia Serrata?
This is a tree from which its resins are used to make the aromatic Indian frankincense, which you may recognize from Biblical fame (“We Three Kings”) or from the incense aisle in a herbal store.
The Boswellia Serrata resin has been used in Ayurvedic & other Eastern traditional medicine for centuries. (6)
A Boswellia Serrata tree
Boswellia’s healing properties
Boswellia extract has proven itself in recent times too, with clinical studies demonstrating a few health benefits, particularly in the areas of inflammation & osteoarthritis. (7)
My slightly informed guess was that this is why it’s included in 1MD’s CurcuminMD Plus, although on their website’s product page for CurcuminMD Plus 1MD writes that
“its antioxidant powers boost the effects of the curcumin.”
In their comprehensive 2017 book Nutritional Modulators of Pain in the Aging Population, editors concluded:
“There is sufficient evidence to prove the clinical efficacy of Boswellia in patients with osteoarthritis.” (8)
So of course I decided I’d poke around the medical research department and see what’s up…
Boswellia helps with osteoarthritis
One of the clinical trials where boswellia’s effectiveness at improving osteoarthritis symptoms was clearly demonstrated was an 8-week study on osteoarthritis of the knee:
“All patients receiving drug treatment reported decrease in knee pain, increased knee flexion and increased walking distance. The frequency of swelling in the knee joint was decreased.” (9)
In the US Library of Medicine database I also came across an article published in Nutrition Journal that provided a review of several Boswellia extract research studies, all dedicated to arthritic pain.
Looks to me like all of the studies showed some benefit occurred from Boswellia supplementation; here’s a table summarizing the results:
If the text is too small to decipher I apologize, so here’s a link to the original article’s table:
Benefits of Antioxidants for Knee Osteoarthritis – Table
Ingredient #2
Longvida® Curcumin Extract
I’ll provide a bullet-pointed summary of its main attributes here, but if you’d like a lot more info…
…as I mentioned a bit ago, I go into great detail on the unique curcumin formula Longvida® in my article, 4 Best Longvida Optimized Curcumin Brands here on heydayDo.
Some of the topics I cover there are:
- Longvida’s origins in a UCLA neurology lab;
- how Longvida works;
- human clinical trials testing Longvida;
- background on the company making Longvida;
- sourcing of the curcumin used in Longvida;
- “and a whole lot more” as they say. 😊
About Longvida
* Due to Longvida’s one-of-a-kind formula, it has proven in multiple studies that its curcumin is up to 285x more bioavailable than your typical 95% standardized curcumin.
* Bioavailability is a big deal, because curcumin is not absorbed well at all by our bodies.
* The curcumin extract in Longvida has been “wrapped” in phospholipids (a type of fat molecule) which allows it to make it through our digestive system and absorbed into our bloodstream.
* Longvida has had over two dozen clinical research trials conducted on its effect on a variety of health issues.
* There are a handful of brands besides 1MD who’re putting Longvida in their turmeric curcumin supplement — though there’s no Boswellia at work in them — and I discuss the better ones in that Longvida article I mentioned.
About 1MD, CurcuminMD Plus’ company
All 4 of these gentlemen are practicing physicians in the Southern California area.
Here’s a little background info on the people behind CurcuminMD Plus.
1MD company goal
“Our mission is simple: helping people live longer, healthier lives through the powerful integration of advanced science and nature.
We’re dedicated to helping you regain your vitality by providing a gateway to health which includes innovative health supplements and access to the latest research news, nutrition, and fitness, so you can lead a stronger, healthier life.”
(from the About page on the 1MD website)
Over 20 specialized supplements
If I’m counting correctly, 1MD makes a total of 21 supplements including the CurcuminMD Plus we’re looking at in this article.
All of them target specific areas within our bodies:
- Digestive health (8 products)
- Joint health (3)
- Heart health (3)
- Immune health (2)
- Prostate health
- Bone health (2)
- Eye health
- Brain health
As I said way back when, all of the products I looked at on Amazon had great buyer feedback & high ⭐ ratings too.
Their physicians create the formulas
1MD has four medical doctors who create their patented supplement formulas.
Each of these physicians has their own successful medical practice in the Los Angeles area, and all have solid local reputations.
They put their names, faces, & those professional reputations on the line, front & center with their 1MD supplements.
They’re practicing physicians, not an internet supplement company
My gut feeling is that these doctors, given that they all have active medical practices, do not operate the day to day e-commerce side of 1MD.
Digging around the business listings for this company, I’m fairly certain they have little to do with actively managing it on a daily basis.
There’s a different person listed as CEO and on their business filings, so my uninformed guess is that the 1MD online supplement portal is run by people specialized in that.
They’ve written lots of specific health guides
The four physicians behind 1MD created the supplement formulas to their specifications, and have written dozens of excellent articles on their site that go into great detail over their thought processes on how to treat each of the health conditions their supplement formulas target.
And the articles are written in a way that even a regular non-science dude like me can understand what’s up. 😉
Manufacturing quality
1MD’s facilities conform to GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) standards, a U.S. Drug Administration designation indicating that 1MD has taken
“proactive steps to ensure that their products are safe, pure, and effective.” (21)
This standard lets consumers know that the company making their food, drug, or supplement is in full compliance with Federal Law regarding consumer safety.
1MD is also NSF-certified.
NSF (the National Sanitation Foundation) is an accredited, third-party testing organization whose certification verifies that the supplement products 1MD makes & sells meet or exceed all public health & safety standards.
1MD’s thoughts on product cost
1MD, the makers of CurcuminMD Plus, have this to say regarding cost:
“Our motto is: Cheaper is not better.
We promise our formulas actually do what they say they do because our products are designed with clinically-studied ingredients at the specified clinical dose which was proven to be effective, delivering to you superior health supplements.
After all, your health is our mission, so why would we (and YOU) settle for anything less?” (1MD About page)
CurcuminMD is cheaper on their website vs. Amazon
Note that you can get it cheaper than their listed Amazon price if you buy directly from their website, BUT ONLY IF you order multiple bottles or sign up for their Subscribe & Save program.
Visiting their website for the first time I see here that if I just buy 1 bottle today, they’d charge me the same price as I currently see on Amazon ($44.99).
And as you might expect, the more you order at once the cheaper the price drops: 3 bottles @ $39 each, 6 bottles @ $34.
Currently as I write this, their cheapest price is if you go all in with Subscribe & Save with a 6-month dose shipped to you twice a year: $26.99
I bought 6 months’ worth for the missus to try & see if 1MD’s Longvida+Boswellia combo would help her hip joint pain issue.
I did this since she didn’t notice any improvement while taking a curcumin product that was using black pepper extract as the absorption enhancer for a number of months.
She felt better within days, and I attribute that to the boswellia at least as much as the Longvida curcumin (just my opinion o’ course).
Assaulted during the checkout process
Anyways, I found the checkout on 1MD’s site kind of a pain-in-the-butt, because they hammered me with “Why don’t you buy this too!” pop-up ads for other products they sell.
Whatever.
I soldiered on through all that crap since I saved over a hundred bucks for the six month supply compared to buying it on Amazon. 😉
Bottom line on CurcuminMD Plus
* No doubt (in my mind anyway), CurcuminMD Plus is one of the better curcumin supplements on the market, simply because 1MD is making theirs using Longvida® vs. generic turmeric powder.
* Longvida has sound research demonstrating its potential benefit in key health areas.
* The addition of Boswellia Extract is a welcome ingredient for someone dealing with inflammatio or osteoarthritis pain & decreased mobility in their joints, as it’s supported by clinical results too.
* And lastly as we just went over, CurcuminMD costs more than other similarly high-quality Longvida curcumin products on Amazon, but is much cheaper if you buy directly from them.
Up next: the skinny on turmeric supplements
Alrighty then, this next section is the turmeric tutorial I promised you way back at the beginning of the article.
I wrote it up to help anyone not skilled at telling a great turmeric curcumin supplement from one that’ll do nothing for you…
…and there are plenty of those in the marketplace these days as manufacturers capitalize on turmeric-mania.
Just look at the number of products available:
Crash course in turmeric supplements
Lesson #1 is a one-liner:
Knowledge is power, and most turmeric supplements on the market these days are a waste of your money.
Synopsis: I figured I’d share a bit of factual information with you, so you can cut through the marketing hype and zero in on the handful of curcumin supplements that are worth paying for.
😉
(If you have a good handle on what’s actually in all those hundreds of turmeric supplements manufacturers are waving at us these days, some or all of this may be familiar ground.)
Curcumin 101
Curcuma longa
The curcuma longa plant is where it all starts, specifically where its rhizomes (underground sideways stems) are growing.
Turmeric
Those rhizomes are what we call turmeric, and they’re dried & ground into the well-known orangish yellow powder that’s used as a spice…and now a billion dollar supplement niche too.
NOTE: The word ‘turmeric’ is obviously a common sight on most turmeric products’ Supplement Facts labels.
“What, it’s not on all of them?”
Nope, check it out:
That’s 1MD’s Amazon listing for their CurcuminMD Plus product on top with the Turmeric in the title, and its Supplement Facts label underneath, without any reference to turmeric.
Curcumin
Curcumin is the chemical inside turmeric rhizomes & powder that has the health benefits everyone’s clamoring for; it’s what gives turmeric that deep yellow color.
NOTE: This word has to be on the Supplement Facts label of any turmeric product you’re thinking of getting…I’ll tell you why in a sec.
And the word Extract had better always accompany it, and I’ll tell you why in a sec. 😜
Curcuminoids
This is the name for the bioactive compounds that have the healing power that’s proven itself effective for treating a few different human health problems. (13)
NOTE: You don’t have to see the word curcuminoids on the Supplement Facts label of a high-quality turmeric curcumin product; check out CurcuminMD Plus’ label above.
(In their case it’s because Longvida® is a protected formula, so they don’t have to disclose that.)
But the makers of most good curcumin supplements want you to know they have a quality product.
So they’ll have the word curcuminoids on their Supplement Facts label, & it’s often displayed like so:
Must-know facts about turmeric supplements
*The amount of curcumin in turmeric root powder is very very little…only 3%. (14)
*Worse still, curcumin is VERY poorly absorbed by our body, as our digestive system just gets rid of it before it can get in our bloodstream. (15)
*The amount of curcumin used in clinical studies where curcumin proved itself is dozens of times greater than the amount found in any turmeric powder supplement. (16)
*So the amount of turmeric root powder in a supplement means almost nothing, even when it’s a big number:
That “big number” – 1350 mg of turmeric root powder – only provides 41 mg of curcumin. (1350 x 3%)
The effective clinical doses of curcumin have been roughly between 1000-1500 mg of curcumin. (15)
Doing the math you easily see that even a lot of turmeric powder is not going to cut it, health benefits-wise.
Adequate curcumin requires concentrated extract
The only way to swallow enough curcumin every day to get health benefit is by taking supplements where sufficient curcumin has been concentrated into an extract.
NOTE: It will be most often be listed as a turmeric extract on the Supplement Facts label:
Reminder >> Unique, patented curcumin extract formulas like Longvida® & others sometimes aren’t listed as ‘turmeric extract’.
For example, on the CurcuminMD Plus label 1MD says “Optimized Curcumin Extract (From Curcuma Longa Root)”.
Summary
Cool, that’s my quick lesson on turmeric curcumin supplements for ya 😊.
Hope it helps you avoid getting bamboozled by a hyped-up marketer with a crappy turmeric product.
If you need to return to where we left off, click this blue link to go back up to the CurcuminMD Plus Ingredients section.
Wrapping up
Related curcumin articles here on heydayDo
7 Best Curcumin Supplements with the Curcuminoids We Need
I hope that my review article on 1MD’s CurcuminMD Plus turmeric supplement is useful to you, and that the research information on its key ingredients Longvida® & Boswellia extract is helpful too.
I wish you well on your fitness journey.
Let’s go.
– greg
