Turmeric Helps in Recovering From Alzheimer's Disease

The mortality rate of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has steadily increased in the past 30 years. Alzheimer's disease is one of the fastest growing diseases in the United States, the sixth most common cause of death in the United States. This illness usually occurs in elderly people over 60 years old. According to the National Aging Institute (NIA) (2010), over 5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's disease. By 2050, this figure is expected to double as the population of the United States ages.

Alzheimer's disease - animal studies concludes that turmeric, especially curcumin, can reverse the important features of degenerative diseases amyloid plaques and related neurotoxicity (4). However, some people think that turmeric can not easily cross the blood brain barrier (that is, it is not easy to enter the brain in the necessary place). To confirm the effect of turmeric on Alzheimer's disease, more human tests are necessary, but the above findings are very promising. Depression - turmeric is also associated with helping to alleviate depressive symptoms. Applicants clinically diagnosed with depression were divided into groups and curcumin and drug antidepressants were compared and the combination of the two was determined. The results show that curcumin is equally effective as a drug antidepressant. Combining them alleviates even higher depressive symptoms, but this is not statistically significant (5).

Examining the population of India, there is a clear link between Alzheimer's disease and turmeric. Turmeric is a very common spice in India, where the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease is lower in India than in the United States (Calabrese et al., 2003). There is not much scientific research on turmeric suppression of Alzheimer's disease, so its implementation is not known (Ahmed & Gilani, 2008). When observing the activity of AChE and curcuminoids, bis-demethoxycurcumin is the most potent curcuminoid and curcumin is the least potent curcuminoid (Ahmed & Gilani, 2008). In the memory retention test, they used scopolamine-induced amnesia and the Morris water maze in rats. Following the injection of scopolamine, rats were administered curcumin or a mixture of bis-demethoxycurcumin or curcumin.