Hacker News Reader

Comment by esperent | Hacker News Reader

> According to the World Health Organization, an acceptable daily dose is up to 3 mg per kilogram of weight per day—for a 150-pound (68 kg) adult, that would be about 204 mg per day. Mohan was taking more than 10 times that amount

I think it's extremely likely that the majority of people in India and surrounding countries - so, hundreds of millions of people - far exceeds the WHO recommendation every day, and frequently eat as much as this woman did, in foods that also contain black pepper. I googled to make sure, and the top five or so links all said that Indians eat an average of 2-2.5g of turmeric per day.

So perhaps the issue was something else? For example:

- contamination

- taking it on an empty stomach rather than with food

- genetics

- liver damage from something else entirely

View on HN

You're conflating turmeric with the bioactive chemical component in turmeric, curcumin: the toxicology figures refer to the latter.

(To be fair, the Ars Technica article fails the reader by failing to use precise language, inviting dangerous misunderstandings).

I carefully read the article before commenting to check in case it was actually curcumin.

They clearly call it turmeric supplements, not curcumin, throughout the article. The main source given is this NBC article, which also clearly calls it turmeric supplements, not curcumin:

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/liver-damage-turm...

So why do you think it's actually curcumin?

If you follow the linked references in the Ars Technica, those reference curcumin unambiguously.

https://apps.who.int/food-additives-contaminants-jecfa-datab... ("...ADI of 0–3 mg/kg of body weight for curcumin...")

That's concordant with the "up to 3 mg per kilogram of weight" in Ars, which is phrased ambiguously, as if to refer to turmeric. The Ars editors are in the wrong.

Ok, so the WHO recommendation is for curcumin. That makes sense.However, the supplement this woman was taking is quite unambiguously referred to as turmeric in both articles.

At this point I'd say we should just write it off as terrible reporting and make a mental note that the quality of Ars Technica is taking a significant drop, if they're allowing these kind of errors in their articles.

> contamination

Well, turmeric certainly has a history of “contamination”[1].

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/09/23/nx-s1...

The 3mg per kg per day is of curcumin not turmeric itself. Looking up the content of curcumin in turmeric powder it seems to average around ~1-2% so 2-2.5g of turmeric per day would be 25-50mg of curcumin.

Except the article didn't mention she was taking curcumin but turmeric. Sloppy journalism could also be a culprit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com