- Cole GM, Teter B, and Frautschy SA. Neuroprotective effects of curcumin. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2007; 595: 197-212
Scientific Essence: Current medical treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and stroke are not effective. These diseases result in the loss of neurons. Neuroprotective molecules help in preventing the onset of these diseases. Curcumin has at least 10 known neuroprotective pathways of action. The authors conclude by saying that dietary curcumin is a strong candidate for use in the prevention or treatment of major disabling age-related neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and stroke.
- Antioxid Redox Signal. Strimpakos AS, Sharma RA. 2008 10(3):511-45.
Scientific Essence: This comprehensive review covers extensive literature on the use of curcumin as a therapy for cancer and its potential use in the treatment of other diseases such as degenerative neurologic disorders, cystic fibrosis, and cardiovascular diseases. The authors emphasize articles on the prevention and treatment of human cancers.
- Ringman JM, Frautschy SA, Cole GM, Masterman DL, and Cummings JL. Curr Alzheimer Res. 2005 Apr;2(2):131-6
Scientific Essence: There is considerable amount of data which shows the anti Alzheimer's, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits of curcumin. Curcumin is a promising agent in the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease. Clinical trials on the effect of curcumin on elderly population with Alzheimer's disease are in progress.
- 2009, Volume 6, No.2. K. S. Raja, R. Balambika, S. Dolai and W. Shi
Scientific Essence: Only 5-15% of the ~25000 existing species of plants have been examined for the presence of biologically active compounds. The ancient medical systems use a much larger palette of herbs for therapy. Systematic drug discovery involving using cues provided from traditional medical systems is bound to produce a new generation of green drugs. Curcumin the primary active ingredient in Curcuma longa is used as a model to demonstrate the concept of green drug development. Synthetic and formulation based approaches to optimize the bioactivity of curcumin is presented.
- Pari, Leelavinothan; Tewas, Daniel; Eckel, Juergen. Archives of Physiology and Biochemistry (2008), 114(2), 127-149
Scientific Essence: Curcumin, the orange-yellow component of turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a spice. Recently there has been considerable interest on curcumin and its use in the treatment of a wide variety of diseases without any side effects. It has been used since ancient times on the Indian subcontinent to treat various diseases such as rheumatism, body ache, skin diseases, hepatic disorders, inflammations, leukoderma, amenorrhea, and colic. In addition, curcumin has the potential to treat a wide variety of inflammatory diseases including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, psoriasis, etc. This article reviews the use of curcumin for the chemoprevention and treatment of various diseases.
- Ahmed, Touqeer; Gilani, Anwarul-Hassan. Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior (2009), 91(4), 554-559
Scientific Essence: In this study, the authors compare the effects of curcumioids, the various components in turmeric (turmeric contains several beneficial compounds called curcuminoids; curcumin is just one of these). They studied the usefulness of different curcuminoids found in turmeric for memory enhancement in Alzheimer's disease. The results indicate that curcuminoids other than curcumin were more effective than curcumin alone. This research shows that using turmeric with all the curcuminoids as packaged by mother-nature may be better than curcumin.
- Yang F, Lim PLGP, Begum AN, Ubeda OJ, Simmons, MR, Ambegaokar SS, Chen P, Kayed R, Glabe CG, Frautschy, SA and Cole GM.; J Biol Chem., 2005, 280, 5892-5901
Scientific Essence: Alzheimer's disease could be caused by accumulation of amyloid plaques, oxidative damage and inflammation in the brain. The risk of developing the disease can be reduced by antioxidants and anti-inflammatory consumption. Curcumin crosses the blood-brain barrier and dissolves the aggregation of amyloid plaques. The authors conclude that curcumin prevents fibril and oligomer formation, supporting the rationale for curcumin use in clinical trials preventing or treating AD.
- Rossi, L.; Mazzitelli, S.; Arciello, M.; Capo, C. R.; Rotilio, G. Neurochemical Research (2008), 33(12), 2390-2400
Scientific Essence: Most neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by oxidative damage and inflammation. The article reviews the effect of food polyphenols such as curcumin on Alzheimer's disease.
- Sun, Albert Y.; Wang, Qun; Simonyi, Agnes; Sun, Grace Y. NeuroMolecular Medicine (2008), 10(4), 259-274.
Scientific Essence: The authors review the neuroprotective benefits of natural phenolic compounds such as curcumin, resveratrol and epi-gallocatechin (from turmeric, grapes and green tea) to provide a better understanding of how these compounds work and to evaluate their therapeutic function.
- Mancuso, Cesare; Bates, Timothy E.; Butterfield, D. Allan; Calafato, Stella; Cornelius, Carolin; De Lorenzo, Antonino; Dinkova Kostova, Albena T.; Calabrese, Vittorio. Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs (2007), 16(12), 1921-1931
Scientific Essence: Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder. This results in a decrease in the cognitive faculties and eventually ends in death. The current drugs for the disease such as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors result only in marginal improvement. In recent years, many studies have pointed out the value of natural antioxidants such as curcumin to reduce neuronal death occurring in Alzheimer's disease patients. These studies indicate that mechanisms other than antioxidant activities could be involved in the neuroprotective effect of polyphenolics such as curcumin.
- Cole, Greg M.; Lim, Giselle P.; Yang, Fusheng; Teter, Bruce; Begum, Aynun; Ma, Qiulan; Harris-White, Marni E.; Frautschy, Sally A. Education and Clinical Center, Geriatric Research, Neurobiology of Aging (2005), 26(S1), S133-S136
Scientific Essence: Two major diseases of the elderly are Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular disease. While the biomarkers and high risk groups in heart disease are well studied, these are fairly unknown in the case of Alzheimer's disease. Anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) such as ibuprofen may be helpful in these diseases, but there are safety concerns associated with NSAIDS. Curcumin has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties and it targets multiple Alzheimer's disease pathways and has a favorable safety profile.
- Shi W, Dolai S, Rizk S, Hussain A, Tariq H, Averick S, L`Amoreaux W, El Idrissi A, Banerjee P and Raja KS; Organic Letters, 2007, 9, 5461-5464
Scientific Essence: The article describes a technology to produce a range of curcumin derivatives. The anticancer and anti-Alzheimer's disease properties of curcumin and some of its derivatives are also discussed.
