Antiparasitic properties of curcumin: A review

Medicinal plants are known as one of the most effective approaches to overcome parasitic infections, which has been used several years ago. Curcuma longa (C. longa) that is commonly used as a food additive in cooking. Curcumin as the major compound extracted from C. longa serves for the various therapeutic and preventive purposes. The present review paper is aimed to investigate the antiparasitic effects of curcumin reported in recent years. The data was collected from several databanks including ISI, Google Scholar, Pubmed, Scopus, and SID (Scientific Information Database, Iran). After a primary study of the retrieved data, the most relevant literature was subjectively classified based on the type of parasite. Then, the effect of curcumin treatment on various parasites was assessed regarding the kind of parasite. According to the results, curcumin manifested a high potential to serve as an effective drug against various parasites. Therefore, further studies in detail on curcumin might offer a new perspective that helps to design efficient formulations for hampering the infections caused by parasites in both human and animals.