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Comment by foobaw | Hacker News Reader

One of my friends who has severe dietary/gut problems did several isolated experiments on himself with different probiotics and found success from very specific ones like PHGG and GOS..

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It may also depends on how you get them. For example somebody told me that turmeric helps with joint inflammation. Bought some turmeric capsules and they did nothing. But then I used it in cooking and it definitely makes a difference for my joint pain. It comes back while traveling and I don't get turmeric. But as soon as I get home and eat my own food the joint pain gets better. It also gets worse when I stop using turmeric in my own cooking for a while.

That's very interesting, is your joint pain from arthritis, injury, or something else? Does anything other than turmeric help? Does your OTC pain reliever of choice like advil/aleve/tylenol help?

It's inflammation which then makes everything worse. Cooling the joints often helps. Avoiding sugar is very important. It gives me a lot of pain.

Pain relievers don't seem to help much and I also don't want to live on a daily diet of them.

Do you buy a special brand or will generic tumeric from the spice shelf at publix work?

I get it from Mountain Rose Herbs and grind it myself. I keep the powder only for a few weeks.

Did the supplement contain pepper? AFAIK you need to consume turmeric together with black pepper to make it effective (blocks something in the liver IIRC). Maybe that was the reason?

I don't know about the supplement. But yes, I always use some pepper when I cook.

Pill form never did anything for me, but live sauerkraut seems to calm things down when I'm in gastric distress.

(Personal anecdote of why I am inclined to believe your friend's experience)

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