Understanding Enhansa: A Deep Dive into Curcumin Supplementation
When Your Child’s Mood, Sleep, or Focus Changes
If your child’s mood, sleep, or focus seems to shift overnight, you are not imagining that. Inflammation in the body, and especially the brain, can change so much about how our kids feel and function. Today, we’re breaking down what the science really says about one supplement that parents often ask me about, Enhansa.
What Is Enhansa?
Enhansa is a line of high-absorption curcumin supplements that has been developed and produced by Lee Silsby. It’s a compounding pharmacy. They’re a very specialised compounding facility that’s in Ohio.
They’re used by a lot of the top functional medicine doctors. Enhansa is not a prescription. They do prescriptions and supplements. This is a supplement. Enhansa was created to address common health challenges like inflammation and detoxification. And many functional medicine doctors do use Lee Silsby as a compounding pharmacy.
What Makes Enhansa Different?
Curcumin, the active compound in turmeric, is known for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Now, what Lee Silsby says is that this is set apart from just your regular curcumin is its proprietary formulation.
So it is trademarked, and they do say that their product is 7 to 8 times the absorption rate of your standard curcumin extracts. So it makes it more bioavailable, and they don’t add black pepper, which is commonly added in curcumin supplements because the black pepper really helps with the absorption, but sometimes it can irritate the gut. So Lee Silsby, when they formulated this, they used phytochemicals extracted from curcumin.
So they’re saying that it has a particular ratio, and that’s really what gives it the edge absorption-wise, is what part of the plant they’re using in the ratios. Standard curcumin extracts typically have bioavailability challenges. That’s common.
Studies only show like 1 to 2% absorption. That’s why doctors, some do recommend some type of curcumin if you’re having inflammation as an issue, but some doctors just skip it entirely because of how it’s not really bioavailable. However, this product was developed to change that.
The Importance of Curcumin Absorption
So let’s get into that. The absorption of curcumin it’s important because of the mechanism of action. So curcumin has been shown in various studies to increase glutathione levels in the body.
Glutathione is a critical antioxidant. I have different videos on that. And glutathione helps support detoxification.
It also helps reduce oxidative stress and also helps protects cells from damage. So, since inflammation is involved in so many with autism, that’s why curcumin is often recommended. But again, it’s poorly absorbed in general. So some don’t even recommend it.
The Enhansa Glutathione Study
On Lee Silsby’s website, they do have a graphic showing that they did a clinical study to measure the change in glutathione. It was a really small study.
It was seven subjects. They took the product for 22 days. And the graphic shows that for a few of the subjects who were taking it, there was a large change in glutathione as measured by blood tests.
But a few’s relatively flat. So I mean, it’s a really small study. And it also didn’t compare the values to other curcumin products, which would be cool to see if really Enhansa was a superior product that had better absorption of curcumin, which then resulted in more glutathione.
They didn’t do that part of the study. So that study just shows that their product does increase baseline glutathione as measured by blood. And it was a really small study, seven subjects.
For Parents Concerned About Oxalates and Phenols
Now, if any parents are concerned about oxalates and phenol, the company does claim that their product has low oxalate and low phenol content.
Capsules vs. Powder: Which Form Is Easier?
So if your child is not swallowing pills, it’s going to be a little on the difficult side to really mask this. So this pill version.
There is definitely a smell, but there’s like some kind of coating of something on the capsules. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but it definitely has a particular taste. I took these a few times.There is something on the capsules themselves. So when I put it in my mouth, even though the capsule is not open, I definitely can taste something. Kind of tastes like curcumin.
That was something that I noticed immediately when I started taking them. I did take these for 30 days or so. I didn’t notice any huge difference, but inflammation for me in general is on the low side. So I’m not necessarily your best test subject on this, but I did sample it just to see if there was any change.
The powdered form for those kids who can’t swallow pills comes with little scoops. So I tested out the pills and stuff.
Dosage Instructions for the Powdered Form
For the powdered form, it says to start small with these scoops. So it says in week one to take two level small white scoops in the morning. So take two of these.
And then the second week, right? So they’re only increasing every week. The second week, take two scoops of this in the morning and then two scoops of this in the afternoon.
Week three, you switch to the clear spoon, which is the equivalent of four of these. So then it says to take one clear scoop in the morning and then still two small scoops in the afternoon. And then week four is when you’re finally at what they feel is full dose.
So it would be one large scoop of this in the morning and one large scoop in the afternoon. They do say that there can be benefits at higher doses, but obviously, ask your healthcare practitioner.
Mixing and Taste Experience
The feeling, yep, it’s going to be, it’s going to be orange, very bright orange. Wow, that is real orange. There’s no filler in here.
So I have about eight ounces of water here. I’ll take out a scoop. It’s a very small amount. I swirled around, and it’s not mixing in. It just floats on the top.
Our body, which has a lot of water in it, is difficult. So it hasn’t really changed the color of the water drastically, but it definitely is hard to get it to dissolve in. So you’re going to be left with like the powder.
So water might not be the best thing to mix this with. There’s definitely a taste, but it’s similar to the taste of the capsule.
That’s what must be on the outside of these pills. Just like a little bit of the curcumin. It’s not terrible. It doesn’t really change it, the water, too much. I think you could, I mean, it was such a small amount, too, that I put in there. I think you could probably mask that pretty well.
You might try to put that more in the food, but again, it will change the color. But it’s not an overwhelmingly bad taste or anything like that. It is just hard to dissolve it.
So you’ll end up wasting a lot of it if you’re trying to dissolve it in a liquid to deliver that way. I think you’ll end up with a decent percentage of it, still just kind of sitting on the sides.
Opt or Drop: The Final Verdict
Okay, so Opt or Drop, it’s kind of down the middle, right? So there’s definitely nothing wrong with it at all whatsoever.
It’s a clean product. The quality is there. But again, absorption for curcumin in general is not the highest. So you’ll be taking stuff, but it’s not having as much of an impact as you would want it to. So it’s definitely not a drop. Curcumin is great, and there’s no reason not to use this.
It’s just when you start making decisions of how many supplements am I going to give and what makes the most sense, curcumin might end up being lower on that list just because of the absorption. But overall, if I needed a curcumin supplement, I definitely would opt for this. I see absolutely nothing wrong with it whatsoever.
Just be mindful that absorption of curcumin in general is not the best. So you would definitely want to make sure you’re increasing glutathione in other ways and not just relying on curcumin.
We encourage you to share your experiences or tips. Have you used Enhansa? Your insights could certainly help others in our community. By sharing your stories, you can help others facing similar challenges.
So don’t be silent. Your input not only supports others but also fosters a sense of community and shared understanding.
Let’s learn from each other and make this journey a little easier for everyone. We can’t wait to read your thoughts, and remember, knowledge is power. Stay informed. Stay empowered.
Confused by all the information about autism? I’ve got you. Click the link to see how we can work together. Let me break down the science and provide you with clear, actionable steps to make your path forward easier.
