Preventing and Treating Alzheimer’s Dementia with Turmeric Curcumin

In a petri dish, curcumin—the pigment responsible for the bright yellow color of turmeric—not only inhibits the production of the Alzheimer’s-disease-associated-protein amyloid beta, and prevents its aggregation into plaques, it can help break up preformed plaques and tangles… as well as protect nerve cells from amyloid neurotoxicity. Curcumin is so good at homing in on amyloid it can be used to stain and label plaques for imaging in Alzheimer’s disease brain tissue. 
 
In animal models of Alzheimer’s disease, turmeric extracts have yielded an “apparent consensus of promising results.” Feeding mice or rats (who have been genetically engineered to experience an Alzheimer’s-like dementia) turmeric extracts is able to reduce brain amyloid levels as much as 40%, which can then translate into a reversal of cognitive deficits. But what about in people? 
 
Population studies have correlated curry consumption with better cognition. Might this be why India has some of the lowest Alzheimer’s rates in the world? Individuals in India may average about a quarter teaspoon of turmeric a day, and have a six-fold lower Alzheimer’s incidence than the United States. Now it may matter what’s being curried—chicken masala or chana masala, chicks or chickpeas. India also is the country with the largest proportion of vegetarians, and those eating meat-free have as much as two to three times lower rates of dementia. 
 
One of the reasons turmeric is suspected of playing a role is its effect on tumor necrosis factor (TNF). Those with systemic inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis tend to have higher rates of Alzheimer’s disease, but those with such conditions treated with TNF-blocking drugs appear to be at lower-than-average Alzheimer’s risk. There have been pilot studies of TNF-blockers for Alzheimer’s with promising preliminary results, but their use is limited by their side effect profile that includes fatal infections from immunosuppression, and the fact that they may rarely cause cancer and multiple sclerosis. Curcumin, on the other hand, downregulates production of TNF and tends to only have good side-effects. But does it help with dementia? 
 
A single dose of a third of a teaspoon of straight turmeric (1 gram stuffed into capsules to disguise it) significantly improved working memory over placebo within 6 hours after consumption in healthy older adults. Chronic daily intake of curcumin in middle-aged or older nondemented adults in studies lasting from 12 weeks to 18 months showed mixed results, some showing improved cognition over placebo, and some showing no better effects. Compile studies together in a meta-analysis and overall, there does appear to be a small cognitive benefit for curcumin supplementation in nondemented older adults, but what about in people who need it the most? There have been two randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials of curcumin in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, and they both tended to show cognition status was made worse by curcumin. Those lucky enough to have been randomized to the placebo group ended up better off. 
 
Why didn’t they get the same dramatic results with curcumin supplements that was reported in the case reports that I detailed in my video on treating Alzheimer’s with 5 cents a day worth of straight turmeric? Perhaps those cases were total flukes. On the other hand, maybe turmeric, the whole food, may be greater than the sum of its parts. Curcumin is just one of hundreds of phytochemicals found in turmeric. In response, some researchers suggest creating a blend of components that “represents turmeric in its medicinal value better than curcumin alone.” But why concoct some artificial mixture when Mother Nature already did it for us with turmeric? Because you can’t patent a common spice. And if you can’t patent it, how are you going to charge more, than 5 cents?