Protect Your Brain with curry, turmeric, or Curcumin….

Today's post: Friday, 7-20-2007

It’s been known for quite a while that people who live in India & eat foods spiced with curry rarely to never get Alzheimer’s disease.

Further, many health writers have suggested that it’s the yellow turmeric spice in curry powder that creates this effect. Others have said that it’s the Curcumin in turmeric that does this.

Two studies seem to not only confirm this but show that one of the key ways turmeric does this is by helping make sure your body cleans out the amyloid in your brain before it forms into the destructive plaques that kill your brain neurons.

The more recently released study suggests that a drug using the most effective Curcumin component may even eventually be effective in partially or completely reversing Alzheimers, particularly if it’s used at an early stage.

The good news is that many people like eating curried foods. And, turmeric & Curcumin supplements are available now in health food & supplement stores.

We’ll end this post with some other ways to keep your brain young. They also work.

But here are the two study reports first.:

I found this in the online health news on Yahoo on Monday this week, 7-16-2007.

(From their main page, click on news & then scroll down to the health section to see health news on Yahoo.)This study shows why taking turmeric or curcumin really might help prevent Alzheimer's disease & why it works, at least in part.

(Since these supplements also are antioxidants; act to ensure good blood flow; & have anti-inflammatory effects, they probably also help prevent the damage in the first place. So there may be more to it than just the effect found in this study.)

(Posted Monday, 7-16-2007)

"NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - If laboratory findings hold true in people, treatment with one of the active chemicals in turmeric, the main spice found (in) curry, may boost the immune system of patients with Alzheimer's disease and, thereby, increase the clearance of amyloid plaques in the brain, the primary abnormality seen in patients with the disease, researchers in the United States report.

In their study, Dr. Milan Fiala, from the Greater Los Angeles Veteran's Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues first show that immune cells called macrophages taken from patients with Alzheimer's disease cannot efficiently eliminate amyloid and that this may be related to the abnormal regulation of certain genes.

Treating these cells with an active substance found in turmeric, called bisdemethoxycurcumin, increases the production of some of the genes and enhances macrophage function, according to the team's report, published in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The authors note that other Alzheimer's disease treatment strategies have attempted to increase the clearance of amyloid by stimulating the activity of certain cells located in the brain.

By contrast, the current approach boosts amyloid clearance by enhancing the activity of macrophage cells derived from bone marrow.Further studies are needed to determine if increasing blood levels of macrophages using an oral curcumin agent clear the amyloid plaques, and produce therapeutic effects, in patients with Alzheimer's disease, they add.

SOURCE: Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, July 16, 2007."

The study I saw reported earlier was very similar:

“From the Health Science Institute newsletter on 10-18-2006

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could set loose inside your body a microscopic cleaning crew that would hunt down and remove harmful microorganisms and waste products?

Actually, that crew already exists, working hard every hour to keep you healthy. It's a force made up of cells called macrophages that have the capacity to attach to connective tissue or travel throughout the blood stream where they overwhelm microorganisms that can do you harm. And while macrophages are very effective at what they do, sometimes they need a little help.

Researchers at UCLA have produced evidence that a common spice might be just the help that microphages need to protect the brain from Alzheimer's disease.

…. there's growing evidence that curcumin may … be an effective amyloid plaque inhibitor.

Curcumin is a yellow pigment in the root of turmeric. Curry gets its distinctive color and flavor from curcumin. But in addition to its culinary appeal, curcumin is a natural antioxidant and inflammatory that has been used by Indian Ayurvedic healers for thousands of years to treat indigestion, arthritis, and urinary tract disorders.

In …. a UCLA study in which aging mice with advanced amyloid accumulation in the brain were injected with curcumin. Results showed that curcumin was able to cross the blood-brain barrier and bind to beta amyloid, which helped block amyloid plaque aggregation.

In the September 2006 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, another UCLA team reported on a study that tested the effects of curcumin on AD.

STUDY ABSTRACT
Researchers took macrophage samples from six AD patients and three healthy control subjects

When macrophage samples were tested for their ability to bind with amyloid, uptake efficiency was found to be significantly lower in the AD samples, compared to the control samples

Macrophage samples were then exposed to curcumin for 24 hours

Amyloid uptake efficiency was significantly increased in half of the AD macrophage samples treated with curcumin

Curcumin was more effective in macrophage samples taken from patients with early-stage AD

Curcumin had no effect on macrophage samples from healthy subjects

…., the UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Research Center has begun a clinical trial with human subjects to study the effect of curcumin supplements in AD patients.

Alzheimer's rates in India (where curcumin is widely consumed in curry dishes) are among the lowest in the world. But for most of us here in the west it's not really practical to sharply increase our dietary intake of curry.

Curcumin supplements can be found in health food stores and through many Internet sources.

But curcumin users should be aware of these precautions:

Indigestion is one of the conditions curcumin is used to address, but large doses may cause ulcers in some patients.

Curcumin has been shown to lower cholesterol by prompting the liver to discharge bile, but this can be a problem for anyone with an obstruction of the biliary tract

Curcumin thins the blood, so it should not be taken with anti-coagulants or anti-inflammatory drugs. “

Of course if you have too much oxidized LDL or cholesterol plaques in your blood vessels, the circulation to the neurons in your brain may be harmed. So for most people these last two effects are not only desirable; but also show how turmeric or Curcumin helps prevent Alzheimer’s & age related mental decline in the first place.

In fact, all the practices that protect your heart &/or keep your blood vessels healthy & responsive & keep your blood pressure in the normal range also prevent strokes that can gravely harm your brain & ensure your brain gets enough oxygen and energy & has enough blood flow to clear CO2 & other waste products.

Exercise helps do all these things. Even better, recent studies show exercise causes your body to grow new brain neurons – even in elderly people.

Mental exercise from regular socializing, learning new things, & doing mental activities like cross word puzzles or solving chess problems or playing strategic games like bridge, or simply following subjects you are interested in also grow new neurons & maintain old ones & their interconnections.

At the University of California at Berkeley it was discovered that “enriched environments” in younger mammals & people caused the growth or new neurons & helped form new interconnections. More recently, they found that this process continues to work in even elderly people.

Recently, in our area a 100 year old woman died. And, she was apparently mentally sharp & lived independently virtually the whole 100 years.

Other than taking Curcumin supplements, she did all of the above. She regularly kept up a ONE ACRE garden by herself for exercise; she was an avid fan of the local football teams, the San Francisco 49ers; & the Stanford football team; she played competitive bridge regularly; she was active in her extended family; & an officer in a local social group. She even found time to enjoy & play music.

Her personal focus was to stay optimistic & happy -- & to keep busy. So by keeping very busy with the things she really liked to do, she did.

Your list of activities you like & the kind of exercises you do, will likely be far different.

But, you’ll be happier & live far longer & stay mentally sharp if you follow her example.