I am 58, I live in Asheville, North Carolina, and I play pickleball twice a week with my friend Bev. Saturday is my hiking day. Sunday I am usually in the vegetable garden out back. Somewhere in my mid fifties my knees started filing complaints the morning after a long downhill stretch, and my right shoulder started doing the same the day after pickleball. The knee complaint is not dramatic. It is a stiffness when I put my feet on the floor and walk the fourteen stairs down to the kitchen, and it eases once I am moving. The right shoulder is the same story after two hours of pickleball. Neither one stopped me from doing anything. Both made me slower at it. I am not a doctor, a nurse or a trainer. I am a retired high school office manager who reads labels in the grocery aisle with her glasses pushed up on her head.
I have taken NatureWise Turmeric Curcumin with dinner for 16 months now, and I asked my doctor, Dr. Lowe, before I started. What follows is not a list of promises. It is the list I would give a friend who stopped me at the courts and asked why I bother with it. Some reasons are about what the label says. Some are about my own routine. One is a good reason to walk away. Talk with your doctor or pharmacist before you start any supplement, especially if you take blood thinners or other medication.
The bottle that lives next to my dinner plates
NatureWise Turmeric Curcumin, 2250mg per serving with BioPerine, organic turmeric root and organic ginger, 90 capsules. Read the label for yourself before you decide.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →One bottle replaces three bottles on my counter
Before this I had a turmeric bottle, a separate ginger bottle and a little jar of black pepper extract, and I was not reliable about remembering all three. The NatureWise label lists organic turmeric root, organic turmeric extract and organic ginger, and BioPerine is the black pepper extract named right in the product title. Fewer bottles on the counter means fewer things for me to forget at six in the evening.
The label states 95% curcuminoids
Curcuminoids are the part of turmeric everyone is actually talking about. The NatureWise listing says the curcumin is standardized to deliver 95% curcuminoids, and that is one of the few things on a supplement page I can check without a chemistry degree. I do not need the number to be dramatic. I need it printed somewhere I can read it with my glasses on.
BioPerine is in the title, not buried in fine print
The listing says plainly that curcumin on its own is poorly absorbed by the body. BioPerine is the black pepper extract included alongside it for that reason. I am not going to explain the biochemistry to you, because I cannot. What I can do is turn the bottle around and confirm the thing is actually in there, which is more than some labels let you do.
2250mg per serving is printed where I can find it
Dosing is where supplement shopping gets slippery. One bottle lists a number per capsule, the next lists a number per serving, and the two are not the same thing. NatureWise puts 2250mg per serving in the product title, so I know what I am comparing before I ever reach the cart. I once bought a turmeric bottle at a big box store that listed its number per capsule, and I assumed that meant the same as per serving. It did not. I finished the bottle, did not reorder it, and now I write the serving size on the back of my grocery list before I shop.
It is vegan and non-GMO, and both words are on the listing
I am not vegan. I still read the diet line, because a capsule is a delivery system and I want to know what I am swallowing at dinner. The listing describes this one as clean and non-GMO, made with organic turmeric root, and the diet type is listed as vegan. Small thing, I know. Small things are exactly what a label is for.
It says where it was made and how
The listing says NatureWise manufactures this in the USA in a facility that follows cGMP and undergoes independent testing. I cannot tour the plant. What I can do is notice when a brand bothers to say it and when a listing stays vague about where the bottle came from. That sentence is part of why I kept reordering instead of trying something else.
Capsules, unflavored, so breakfast stays the way I like it
My mornings already have a routine and I am protective of it. Collagen goes in the coffee. This one is a capsule and it is unflavored, so it does not touch the coffee, the oatmeal or anything else in the morning. If a supplement asks me to mix a powder into juice and stir it, I will keep that up for about a week and then quietly stop.
It attaches to a meal I already eat
I take mine with dinner. Not because dinner is special, but because I am already standing in that kitchen at that hour with a glass of water in my hand. I learned the food part the hard way. That first morning was a Saturday in spring, a hiking day. I took it with a glass of water and nothing else, and by the time I reached the trailhead my stomach was turning over. I turned the car around and went home. Since then it is dinner only, and dinner means food on the plate before the capsule comes out.
90 capsules means I am not reordering every other week
The bottle holds 90 capsules. I will not do the arithmetic for you, because how long that lasts depends on the serving you take and on what your doctor tells you. What I will say is that reordering is the step where I fall off a routine entirely. A bigger bottle means fewer chances for me to run out and forget to start again.
Everything I wanted to check was on one page
The ingredient list, the 2250mg per serving, the 95% curcuminoids, the cGMP sentence, and more than 60,000 customer ratings. I copied all of it down and took it to my pharmacist and asked whether it conflicted with anything else I take. That conversation is worth more than any review, mine included. Have it before you buy, not after.
What I'd Skip
Skip the blends that hide every amount inside a proprietary blend, because a label that will not tell you what is in it has already answered your question. Skip powders you know in your heart you will not mix. Skip anything you are buying because an ad yelled at you at eleven at night. And skip turmeric, for now, if you take blood thinners or any other medication and have not asked your doctor or pharmacist first. I would also tell you to skip expecting a change by Friday. My right shoulder felt a little less stiff the morning after pickleball at around six weeks. My knees still creak on the stairs when the weather turns cold. That last part is the honest part, and I would rather you hear it from me now.
My shoulder felt a little less stiff around six weeks in. That is not a promise. That is one woman with a notebook and a pen.
If Saturday's hike is talking to your knees
NatureWise Turmeric Curcumin, 2250mg per serving with BioPerine, organic turmeric root and organic ginger, 90 capsules. Read the label, ask your doctor or pharmacist, then decide for yourself.
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