Effects of curcumin on serum inflammatory biomarkers in patients with knee osteoarthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Curcumin is a potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant herbal medicine that has been shown to exert beneficial effects on knee osteoarthritis (OA). Previous studies revealed that curcumin had a superior effect compared to control treatments in terms of pain intensity and other patient-reported outcomes, including the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS), visual analog scale (VAS), and Japanese Knee Osteoarthritis Measure (JKOM). However, it remains unclear whether curcumin has beneficial effects on serum inflammatory biomarkers. This systematic review and meta-analysis (SRMA) aimed to evaluate the effects of curcumin on changes in serum inflammatory biomarkers in patients with knee OA. METHODS: The PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and EBSCOhost databases were systematically searched from inception to March 28, 2025 to identify all randomized clinical trials (RCTs) that examined the use of curcumin for treating knee OA. Data related to serum inflammatory biomarkers, including C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha) levels, interleukin (IL)-1beta levels, IL-6 levels, and prostaglandin E2 (PGE-2) levels, were extracted and subjected to meta-analysis. RESULTS: Twenty-one studies involving 1705 patients were included. The studies were conducted across seven countries, and their sample sizes ranged from 24 to160. Meta-analysis revealed that the levels of CRP (SMD = -0.906, 95% CI = -1.543 ~ -0.269, P value = 0.005) and TNF-alpha (SMD = -0.921, 95% CI = -1.817 ~ -0.026, P value = 0.044) were significantly lower in the curcumin group than in the placebo group. However, there were no significant differences in the ESR (SMD = -0.064, 95% CI = -0.064 ~ 0.541, P value = 0.836), IL-lbeta (SMD = -0.362, 95% CI = -0.816 ~ 0.092, P value = 0.118), IL-6 level (SMD = -0.218, 95% CI = -0.806 ~ 0.370, P value = 0.467), or PGE-2 level (SMD = 0.413, 95% CI = -0.312 ~ 1.139, P value = 0.264) between the curcumin and control groups. The sensitivity test for CRP indicated that no individual study had a significant influence on the pooled results, while TNF-alpha was not as consistent as that of CRP. The visual analysis of the funnel plots revealed no publication bias. CONCLUSION: Curcumin led to a decrease in the serum CRP and TNF-alpha levels in patients with knee OA. Additional large-scale studies or even synovial fluid analyses are recommended to further evaluate the effects of curcumin on proinflammatory biomarkers in patients with knee OA.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.015 | 0.032 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.022 | 0.034 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".