Turmeric seems to have zero medicinal properties

Interesting. I read a study from Europe last year saying that tumeric was an anti inflammatory, and tumeric with black pepper is much more effective.

Not shown to have any medicinal properties*

As it says at the bottom, if there are any, they're too difficult to isolate

What is in the Nature article is a bit different, it is that it will be, first difficult to know which chemical is really causing the effect that is seen, as curcumin is often composed of many molecules, second that it will be difficult to create a industrial drug from curcumin.So it argues to not spend money on another curcumin study when there are already around thousand. It would be a waste of money.

But if I am not wrong, the Nature article did not say curcumin has no effect, on contrary it has too many to know exactly what is going on.

My anecdotal story: A friend who is a naturopath gave me some tumeric/black pepper capsules to try for arthritis swelling in my knees. I figured I'd try it with a dose of healthy skepticism. Indeed, no real reduction on the swelling or pain, but oh man did it give me the worst abdominal cramping and runs. So maybe it's effective as a laxative?

I'll be really sad if that's the case since it's cheap as hell, and supposedly has (i'm gonna take this one study with a grain of salt for now) anti inflammatory, antioxidant, and antitumoral properties, as well as being a decent cox-2 inhibitor (without the nasty effects of long term use of a NSAID)...

And, yet, study after study after study suggests that diet plays a significant role in health outcomes. But, foods and spices can't be proven effective in promoting health.

Food isn't medicine; shocking. Turmeric is tasty though; I think I'll put some on some chicken.