BehindTheMedspeak: Curry May Prevent Alzheimer's Disease

Animal studies over the past few years have offered tantalizing evidence that curcumin, the yellow pigment in the curry spice turmeric, may prevent the accumulation of the plaques characteristic of Alzheimer's disease.

The latest paper, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry in February of this year, offered the strongest suggestion yet of a link.

An ongoing prospective study in humans is underway at the UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Research Center: you can sign up here.

Driving this work is the fact that India has among the world's lowest rates of Alzheimer's; the prevalence among the country's adults ages 70–79 is less than one–fourth the rate among the same age group in the U.S.

Dr. Gregory Cole, professor of medicine and neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, who headed the February study, noted that "extracts of turmeric have been used in higher doses in Indian traditional medicine as their version of aspirin — a general anti–inflammatory compound that treats multiple conditions."