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Adding some curry sauce to vegetables might become a recommendation from doctors of Alzheimer’s patients if future research validates what current research is pointing to. That sounds like an enjoyable and tasteful way to keep the brain healthy to me. Nursing homes might get some new menus. Indian restaurants might become more popular with senior citizens.

Amazing information is revealed in the current Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease issue. It states that an ingredient from the spice of curry and turmeric called curcumin could become instrumental in the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. Research from UCLA shows that curcumin helps the immune system get rid of the protein called amyloid beta. It is amyloid beta that builds up to form the damaging plaques in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

This possibility is welcome news for me and millions of others who are genetically predisposed to the disease; in my case my mother and aunt both developed Alzheimer’s late in life a year before they died. It seemed synchronistic that all week I have been cooking with curry, not knowing if it was healthy or not, and then coming across this research.

The Journal states that this research builds on the previous research that found that only 1 percent of elderly people in India developed the disease–a fraction of the rate in the United States. In the United States, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, one in 10 individuals over 65 and nearly half of those over 85 are afflicted with the disease. The number of Americans with Alzheimer’s Disease has more than doubled since 1980.

That is a startling statistical difference between the two countries. Is it because of the curry in the Indian diet? If this turns out to be a major breakthrough in Alzheimer’s prevention, will we start seeing more senior citizens frequenting Indian restaurants in the United States?

The new research comes from UCLA. They have discovered that the immune system cells, called macrophages, don’t work properly in Alzheimer’s patients. In test tubes, they have seen that curcumin helps macrophages to function properly. Lead researcher, Dr. Milan Fiala, said “We know that macrophages aren’t working properly in Alzheimer’s patients, since they seem to be defective in cleaning amyloid-beta from brain slices.”

“We have found that curcumin can help some macrophages to function properly in a test tube,” Fiala said. He said more work is needed to see if the spice works similarly in the human brain, however. He also said “we don’t see any toxic effects with curcumin, even administered in high doses.” In the field of medicine, that is refreshing news.

Dr. Sam Gandy, chair of the medical and scientific advisory council at The Alzheimer’s Association, said “In terms of treatment implications, it’s very interesting that curcumin seems to help the brain clear away beta amyloid.

In earlier experiments at UCLA, another research team found that curcumin-fed mice with Alzheimer’s plaques experienced a decrease in inflammation and reduced plaque formation.

Gotu Kola

These results are similar to those obtained in research performed on another herb from India, gotu kola, and its impact on Alzheimer’s Disease. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The research, performed by researchers at Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine, shows that gotu kola extracts reverse behavioral deficits in a mouse model for Alzheimer’s disease. Gotu kola also had protective effects on neuronal cells cultured in the laboratory.

The behavioral changes may be the result of gotu kola’s possible antioxidant qualities. A study in cell culture showed the herb reduced an oxidant known as nitric oxide, which is triggered by the build-up in the brain of beta-amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer’s.

Study co-author Amala Soumyanath, Ph.D., associate professor of neurology, OHSU School of Medicine, said she wasn’t surprised by the positive results. “The herb was selected for study based on its traditional use as a memory enhancer and not just randomly, so the results were not entirely out of the blue,” said Soumyanath, an expert in the study of medicines derived from botanicals.

“However, we were delighted that there was an effect in the models we had selected.” She said her ultimate aim is to “be able to carry out clinical trials in human beings. We want to see if gotu kola is of benefit in Alzheimer’s patients to relieve or delay cognitive impairment.

Gotu kola has long had the reputation as a great enhancer of memory and longevity. See my article on Gotu Kola and the 256 Year-Old Man, a Chinese man whose longevity first sparked interest in gotu kola in Western science after his death in 1933.

Whether it is a curry cure for Alzheimer’s or researching any of the multiple benefits of gotu kola, it seems like scientific health research is heading in a more natural and holistic direction. And that bodes well for all concerned.