I prefer to cycle curcumin, it has a definitive negative impact on my libido, where fasting and HIT will boost my orgasms curcumin seems to diminish them by a lot. For several years I consumed it almost daily, I started to wonder if my lust for sex and masturbation was simply disappearing with age! What a waste of pleasure it was!
However the prospects of curcumin are too good for me to ignore it so I will have a week without it then cook two or three days with Turmeric roots, turmeric powder and curry powder.
Buy and eat the real Turmeric roots. There are many unknown components of Turmeric which are a part of the healthy effects, there have been trials of Turmeric chemically stripped of it's curcumin content which still show anti-cancer activity.
The roots cannot be heated for too long, I add them to my cooking at the end.
For taste and added synergy I consume it with olive oil and generous amounts of curry powder.
I add some turmeric powder just in case the actual milling and grinding process generates some additional beneficial effects.
Goes well with chicken and eggs (LCHF meal)
Do a Pubmed search for each component of curry, each component has a health promoting effect and with the Protandim* trials in mind there are probably many synergies to be had.
When cooking my Turmeric roots I will use one out of two curry powders;
1. Mild Curry: with no added salt but with an extensive array of ingredients: coriander, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, ginger, garlic and black pepper.
2. Hot Curry: no added salt but with an extensive array of ingredients: coriander, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, chili peppers, ginger, garlic, asafoetida, fennel seed, caraway, cinnamon, clove, mustard seed, green cardamom, black cardamom, nutmeg, long pepper, and black pepper.
I usually drink some coffee a few hours before and some green tea and a small glass of red wine after the meal, for the most extensive synergies that I believe exist between all of these compounds to take place.
* Protandim is an expensive dietary supplement consisting some basic supplements well known on this board, read this paper for instance.
My key take-away was the fact that low dose of multiple substances has a powerful synergistic effect. The sum is more than the parts!
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/16413416
** Large amounts of green tea also seems to decrease my libido by the way. But not as badly.