Turmeric supplements and your liver: what regulators say

The short answer

Turmeric in your cooking is fine. Concentrated turmeric and curcumin supplements have been linked to rare cases of liver injury across Europe and beyond, and the risk seems higher with formulas built to boost absorption. If you take one, stay within the daily limits regulators use, avoid it if you have liver or gallbladder problems or take blood thinners, and stop at the first sign of trouble.

What happened

Cases are rare compared with the number of people who take turmeric. But because nobody can predict who will react, regulators focus on keeping doses moderate and warning the people most at risk.

In the UK

• Turmeric supplements are legal and widely sold, but the COT’s 2024 statement is the most detailed official UK assessment: it found reasonable evidence of a link with liver injury and warned that “better absorbed” formulas make simple dose limits unreliable.
• The FSA’s novel foods team considers food supplements made from turmeric oleoresin extract or pure curcumin powder to be novel foods, because they were not significantly consumed before May 1997. On that view such extracts would need authorisation before sale in Great Britain; plain turmeric powder would not. Products are on sale regardless, which is one more reason to read the label carefully.
• There is no UK maximum dose; the EFSA acceptable daily intake below is the figure the COT works with.

The daily limits

Many supplements give more than 153 mg of curcumin a day. Check both the extract amount and the percentage of curcuminoids; not every label makes this clear.

How to compare turmeric supplements by milligrams

You can, but only by one number: milligrams of curcuminoids per daily dose. The weight of “turmeric” on the front says very little. In the US Dietary Supplement Ingredient Database programme (NIH and USDA), products labelled 500 mg of turmeric a day contained anything from 16 to 554 mg of curcuminoids when tested. Products that stated their curcuminoid content were mostly close to the label.

How to work it out:

1. Find the extract per capsule and its % curcuminoids (often 95%), and multiply them: 500 mg × 95% = 475 mg.
2. Multiply by the capsules per day on the label.
3. If the label only gives turmeric root powder, count on a few per cent: curcuminoids make up about 3% of the dried root.
4. If it gives a ratio (“10:1, equivalent to 10,000 mg”), you can’t work it out: the ratio says how much root went in, not how much curcumin came out.
5. Compare the result with 153 mg a day (ANSES, for a 60 kg adult) or 3 mg per kg of your body weight (EFSA, from all sources).

These are example labels to show the arithmetic, not products we tested. Only compare like with like: a milligram of a standard extract and a milligram of an enhanced-absorption formula do not mean the same exposure, as the next section explains.

Why “better absorbed” is not automatically better

Curcumin on its own is poorly absorbed, so manufacturers add piperine (black pepper extract) or use micelles, phytosomes, nanoparticles or cyclodextrins to raise blood levels. That changes the safety picture:

• ANSES says these formulas can raise curcumin’s effects even when the dose stays under the limit, that labels rarely say which type you are buying, and that its 153 mg figure applies only to standard formulas.
• Germany’s BfR says such products should not be assumed to be as safe as ordinary curcumin.
• The UK Committee on Toxicity warns that a standard mg-per-day limit may not reflect their safety.
• The US NIH states that highly bioavailable curcumin formulas may harm the liver.

An example from our database: Sunday Natural Kurkuma-Extrakt + Piperin gives 150 mg of curcuminoids and 5.3 mg of piperine per capsule. On paper that is just under ANSES’s 153 mg. But because it contains piperine, ANSES’s figure doesn’t really apply, and the actual exposure is higher than the milligrams suggest.

Who should avoid turmeric supplements

• People with liver disease or bile duct or gallbladder problems (ANSES and Italy’s label warning).
• People taking anticoagulants, cancer medicines or immunosuppressants, unless their GP or specialist agrees (ANSES).
• Pregnant women: the US NIH says turmeric supplements may be unsafe in pregnancy.

Warning signs to stop and see a doctor (GP, or NHS 111 if it is urgent): unusual tiredness, nausea, loss of appetite, dark urine, or yellowing of the skin or eyes.

Does it work?

For knee osteoarthritis, a 2022 meta-analysis of 15 randomised trials with 1,670 patients found that curcuminoids reduced pain and stiffness and improved function compared with placebo, and seemed no worse than anti-inflammatory painkillers. The authors called the studies low quality and varied, and urged caution. The US NIH describes the early evidence as positive but not definitive.

For most other uses, there isn’t enough evidence to say. No health claim for turmeric or curcumin is authorised in the UK or the EU (botanical claims are on hold on both registers), so labels promising joint, liver or digestive benefits are not using approved wording.

Compare the turmeric products we have checked on our turmeric page. If joint pain is your reason for buying, see also glucosamine and chondroitin: do they work?.