Curcumin in combination: Review of synergistic effects and mechanisms in the treatment of inflammation

Inflammation has an important role in the pathology of various diseases, so it has become a therapeutic target for the development of new pharmacological treatments. Treatment of inflammation using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and steroids class of drugs is known to incur some side effects. Therefore, prevention of inflammation is key to preventing the severity level of the disease. One approach to bridge this problem is by synergistically combining two or more drugs to prevent inflammation. The anti-inflammatory effect of curcumin, a bioactive component especially in the Zingiberaceae family, which delivers a variety of health benefits, has been extensively researched in the last few decades. Curcumin combination has been reported to increase the anti-inflammatory activities. A literature review on researches regarding curcumin combination through some electronic databases, including PubMed and Google Scholar on the combined information, has been carried out. In this review, we summarize the pharmacological activity of curcumin in combination with other components, in particular on synergistic anti-inflammatory effects. To understand how combinations provide a synergistic effect, we present increased bioavailability, which increases the capacity of antioxidants to inhibit inflammatory mediators, receptors, and major signaling pathways. This review provides information and encourages more research in combining medicinal compounds to reduce inflammation. © 2021 Putu Yudhistira Budhi Setiawan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).