Curcumin Showing Promise In Alzheimer’s Research

Projections suggest that with the oncoming silver tsunami 14 million adults will be affected by Alzheimer’s disease by 2050 in the USA alone. The potential of turmeric to help combat this debilitating disease cannot be ignored by mainstream medicine any longer, effects of this and others like it must be investigated more thoroughly; and experts are describing the effects of turmeric on Alzheimer’s patients as being remarkable.

Much like most plant medicines turmeric has been largely ignored thanks to big pharma and the pharmaceutical industry’s all consuming grip on modern medicine and the blindly obedient public who follow by shunning those who dare think outside the sheepeople approved box. Scientists are beginning to wake up to the fact that medicinal plants do exist, and some even outperform big pharma’s concoctions.

Recent research has shown that daily turmeric supplements taken for 12 weeks produced sizeable benefits in Alzheimer’s patients. Patients were given 764 milligrams of turmeric which contained 100 milligrams of curcumin daily; curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric known for its health benefits.

Substantial improvements were observed in patient anxiety, apathy, agitation, and irritability. Within one year patients began to recognize family members again according the the researchers.

In all the study yielded impressive and promising results. Obvious limitation to this study was its size of only three patients. Despite the size this study adds to the growing body of research regarding curcumin/turmeric on Alzheimer’s disease; serving to illustrate how powerful simple natural intervention can be using time tested and true culinary herb can be.

Curcumin/turmeric has been studied for ability to help obliterate cancer, ward off neurodegenerative diseases and more, it is believed that curcumin extracts its benefits by enhancing processes associated with chemical signalling in cells and genes while boosting resistance to inflammation and stress. Curcumin/turmeric is also thought to help protect brain cells against premature aging, by binding to toxic proteins to help prevent forming of dangerous plaques while reducing oxidative stress and damage, lowering cholesterol, reducing inflammation signaling molecules, promoting clean up, and inducing protective mechanisms within the brain.

University of Southern California researchers have also identified curcumin as prime source of improvement in Alzheimer’s patients via its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and lipophilic action.

Due to the various effects of curcumin including delayed degradation of neurons, metal-chelation, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and decreased microglia formation, and decreased beta amyloid plaques overall memory in Alzheimer’s patients has improved. The team has concluded that curcumin is a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.