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Depression

When major depression strikes, Americans turn to Prozac. The pharmaceutical seems to be effective, but it also features side effects, including anxiety, insomnia and sexual dysfunction. That’s about enough to make a person depressed! A 2013 study compared Prozac with 1,000 mg of curcumin for six weeks. Although the researchers said there was no real difference between any of the treatments, the curcumin-only approach helped 62.5 percent of patients, the Prozac worked for 64.7 percent, and the combination dose worked for 77.8 percent. “Curcumin was found to be equivalent to fluoxetine (Prozac),” researchers concluded.

A gold-standard study the next year among those with major depressive disorder found 500 mg twice daily of curcumin took between four and eight weeks to take effect, and worked better with atypical depression—which is both more difficult to treat and the most common type.