Tumeric Might Give Your Brain a Kick
Compound derived from curry spice protects against neurological diseases
29 December 2010
Research suggests consuming turmeric may actually have a protective effect on the brain and nervous system.
Many medicines have come from nature. Both aspirin and quinine were derived from the bark of trees while digitalis, a potent heart medicine, comes from a flower. Researcher Dave Schubert from the Salk Institute in San Diego has been looking at turmeric, a spice that's commonly used, particularly in South Asia.
"If you look at the epidemiology of Alzheimer's in India, and compare that to other countries, India has much lower levels of Alzheimer's than other countries," says Schubert.
He and other researchers believe that part of the reason for that low level of brain injury in India is that, over a lifetime, consuming turmeric may actually have a protective effect on the brain and nervous system. It's not an easy hypothesis to prove, but Schubert began by extracting several compounds from the spice. He found that at least one compound, curcumin, has protective effects on brain cells of lab animals with neurological injuries.
That's probably because, rather than working directly on brain cells, curcumin targets many parts of the body, which is typical of medicines that come from nature.
"So they are antioxidants. They affect inflammation," says Schubert. "And so it's not probably one thing that's happening when you eat something like curcumin, it's multiple things and these things are probably either additive or they multiplied together."
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