One of many plant polyphenolics, curcumin is the Asian version...

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One of many plant polyphenolics, curcumin is the Asian version of aspirin. Our wonder drug aspirin was originally purified from willow bark extracts that were used in European and American Indian traditional medicines to control inflammation. Eventually aspirin was synthesized by German chemists and developed by Bayer as one of the most successful drugs in the Western medicine cabinet. Today aspirin is used not only in pain remedies and other analgesic applications, but to control minor fever and inflammation and, at low doses, to prevent heart attack and stroke. Curcumin has been used in traditional Indian (Ayruvedic) and Chinese medicine for thousands of years largely because of its proven efficacy in treating conditions with inflammation. They also used it in foods as an effective food preservative, just as we use synthetic additives like BHA. These ancient civilizations have vast trial and error experience with many different herbal remedies and food preparations and they selected curcumin as a food additive and major tool for medicinal use based on efficacy- not superstition.

Curcumin is recognized by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and academic investigators around the world as a potent anti-carcinogen. Because of low toxicity and great efficacy in multiple in vitro and in vivo cancer models, curcumin went through extensive toxicology testing and has successively made it through the first stages (Phase I) of clinical testing abroad; it is currently in clinical trials at several sites in the U.S. This work by many labs has provided the basis to quickly and safely explore curcumin’s potential for Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.

Curcumin has shown efficacy in many other pre-clinical culture and animal models for diseases related to aging. Treatments with related “curcuminoids” have even been able to increase the lifespan of mice.

Curcumin and Alzheimer ’s disease.Our group has tested curcumin in several models and found that it not only reduces oxidative damage and inflammation (as expected), but also reduces amyloid accumulation and synaptic marker loss while promoting both amyloid phagocytosis and clearance. In in vitro studies, we found curcumin worked to prevent synaptic marker and cognitive deficits caused by amyloid peptide infusion and abeta oligomer toxicity. Our work on curcumin and AD is discussed in detail in our publications (via Curcumin)

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