Alzheimer’s
disease today is something we have all probably heard about or even know someone
who suffers from it. I for example have first-hand experience with this disease
having worked with Alzheimer’s patients at a nursing home. It is a very sad
disease because it affects memory to the point that the patient forgets family
relatives and even everyday functions such as eating. According to Chemical
& Engineering News in the United States about five million people are
suffering from Alzheimer’s, and the future predicts an increase of cases.
The disease is caused by the
clumping of a peptide called amyloid-B. As the peptide clumps it creates
structures called plaques that cause cell death in the area they accumulate in
the brain. Cell death causes the brain to not function properly and areas that
pertain to memory are extensively affected.
There are medications to slow down
Alzheimer’s disease but they have not proven to be very effective according to
research. Apart from that the medications are extremely expensive sometimes
costing patients tens of thousands of dollars annually. Today scientists have
been performing research on a spice compound that is found on the root of a turmeric
plant called Curcumin.
The
spice Curcumin is used mostly in India to give the curry dish its distinct
color yellow. Research on mice with Alzheimer’s has revealed that Curcumin
decreases inflammation and most importantly reduces clumping of the peptide
Amyloid-B. Studies are still being done to find out of this spice can also be
beneficial for humans with Alzheimer’s disease. Curcumin would be a great option
because besides being a natural treatment it would be a lot less expensive
since the spice is derived from plants.
The
natural world has so many wonderful things to offer and it would be great if
many more scientists would jump on the opportunity to research Curcumin. The
fact that Curcumin has a low uptake rate in the body proves as a challenge to
be attractive to researchers. What counts is that there is hope that maybe soon
there will be a successful and inexpensive treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
It's definitely an awful disease, I'm pretty sure my grandfather had it but was never officially diagnosed with it. It was tough to see him go through that but this spice does sound very promising. They should keep doing research with it in order to see the effects on more people and test that it actually works. There could be a cure for this malignant disease...
ReplyDeleteAdriana, I agree with your article in a way that it’s sad for the family relatives who have a relative with Alzheimer disease because the patient forgets about them, when they have known them for many years. I had never heard of the spice Curcumin used to decrease the inflammation of the peptide amyloid-B but it would be very helpful if scientists research and do more experiments with it to treat the Alzheimer’s disease.
ReplyDeleteI find it very sad for the people who have to go through this disease because at the same time it is affecting them and causing them to forget daily tasks it will also have a huge impact on the family. They will need daily care in order to do their tasks and in some rare cases the family will just place the person in a facility so they will not have to worry about them. This disease will start off slow but gradually get worse if not treated first just from daily tasks to their life time memories they have had. I really hope that they could find an inexpensive treatment for Alzheimer’s so that the patients would be able to take a medication and improve their condition.
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