Curcumin, when administered in a bioavailable form, has potential to influence vascular health of various populations, leading to decreases in cardiovascular disease risk. Clinical intervention studies with curcumin have demonstrated significant improvements in endothelial function, arterial compliance, arterial stiffness, and other measures of vascular hemodynamics in young, middle-aged, old, post-menopausal, healthy, diabetic, and obese individuals. Mechanistically, curcumin is believed to improve vascular function through its effects on inflammation, oxidative stress, nitric oxide bioavailability, and structural proteins of the artery. Current data give support for curcumin to be administered for improvements in vascular health to individuals that may or may not be at risk for cardiovascular disease. This review briefly summarizes the techniques used for the establishment of vascular health and overviews the literature investigating the role of curcumin in the improvement of vascular health.

This study examined the effects of curcumin and fenugreek soluble fiber supplementation on the ventilatory threshold (VT) and peak oxygen consumption ( $\dot{\mathrm{V}}$ O₂ peak). Methods: Forty-five untrained men and women were randomly assigned to one of three supplementation groups: placebo (PLA, n = 13), 500 mg·day⁻¹ CurQfen^® (CUR, n = 14), or 300 mg·day⁻¹ fenugreek soluble fiber (FEN, n = 18). Participants completed a maximal graded exercise test on a cycle ergometer to determine the VT and $\dot{\mathrm{V}}$ O₂ peak before (PRE) and after (POST) 28 days of daily supplementation. Separate, one-way analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) were used to examine the between-group differences for adjusted POST VT and $\dot{\mathrm{V}}$ O₂ peak values, covaried for the respective PRE-test values. Results: The adjusted POST VT $\dot{\mathrm{V}}$ O₂ values for the CUR (mean ± SD = 1.593 ± 0.157 L·min⁻¹) and FEN (1.597 ± 0.157 L·min⁻¹) groups were greater than (p = 0.039 and p = 0.025, respectively) the PLA (1.465 ± 0.155 L·min⁻¹) group, but the FEN and CUR groups were not different (p = 0.943). There were no differences in the adjusted $\dot{\mathrm{V}}$ O₂ peak values (F = 0.613, p = 0.547) among groups. Conclusion: These findings indicated that fenugreek soluble fiber was responsible for the improvements in the submaximal performance index for both CUR and FEN groups.

Fruit and fruit-derived interventions, when provided to various populations of interest, have the potential to contribute to cardioprotective benefits. Of particular interest, arterial stiffness serves as an important prognostic marker for cardiovascular disease and events, so many intervention studies have focused on the ability of fruit and fruit-derived interventions to improve arterial stiffness, especially in the aorta. Therefore, the aim of the present narrative review was to examine the available evidence on the relationship between fruit-based interventions and arterial stiffness. Five electronic databases were searched using a structured search strategy through December 2025. Among the 68 identified clinical investigations, findings were heterogeneous, although some studies reported improvements in interventions derived from berries, grapes, citrus fruits, and watermelon. Current evidence does not support favorable effects following interventions derived from tart cherry, and many fruits lack sufficient evidence to determine whether improvements in arterial stiffness are possible. Given the wide variety of polyphenols and bioactive compounds available in fruit and fruit-based interventions, there is strong theoretical potential for these interventions to exert beneficial effects on the cardiovascular system. Nevertheless, further research is warranted to understand whether fruit-based interventions can produce demonstrable changes in arterial stiffness among varying populations, and when such changes are observed, to elucidate the mechanisms underlying these effects. Thus, additional randomized controlled trials, especially with sufficient durations and adequate sample sizes to detect structural changes in the vascular system, are needed.