Thanks Mrs D, apparently the regular chromium picolinate has been tried as well but only for 6 weeks so far, i can recall reading somewhere were it said that the chromium must be taken for at least 3 months before any benefits can be shown, of course i don't know how true this is, the newer version sounds interesting though.
As well as pabb's great link about curcumin i also googled a lot of interesting info about it as well, it does look very promissing.
thanks again
Brian