Clinical and mechanistic evidences of the interest of curcumin in protecting vascular health
Résumé
Curcumin exerts a range of biological activities of potential interest in cardiovascular prevention. However, the vascular protective effect of curcumin is still poorly investigated in humans and the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which this compound could modulate the vascular endothelial integrity and function remain to be established. In a randomized control trial, we showed that after an acute intake of curcumin and a subgroup analysis of our study population, curcumin induced a positive effect of on endothelial function only in women and in subjects at lower cardiovascular risk. This observation indicates that curcumin intake could be of better interest to prevent endothelial dysfunction rather than to restore the more established dysfunction, ultimately suggesting that curcumin could be a nutraceutical of special interest to maintain endothelial function. In addition, at the cellular level, we showed that the pre-exposure of endothelial cells to curcumin prior to their activation reduced monocyte adhesion and their trans-endothelial migration in both static and shear stress conditions mimicking the blood flow. Our findings also demonstrated the ability of curcumin, in physiologically relevant conditions, to reduce monocyte TEM through a multimodal regulation of the endothelial cell dynamics with a potential benefit on the vascular endothelial function barrier. In conclusion, taken together these results provide new clinical and mechanistic insights supporting the capacity of curcumin to promote vascular integrity and function. However, further investigation are warranted, especially to better understand the substantial between-subject variability observed in the vascular response to curcumin