A Little Spice in Our Lives: Good Brain Food

In my Peace Corps days as a volunteer teacher in North Africa, I vividly remember buying spices from large burlap spice bags at the Thursday morning open-air market on the main street of my little town, Grombalia, Tunisia. The women selling the spices had colorful orange and brown scarves wrapped around their heads with long, silver earrings dangling from their ears in the Berber style . They were friendly and I often bought spices, taking their advice on how to use them in cooking. That's where I learned to love turmeric, also called curcumin. It's a bright yellow spice which colors everything in its path yellow (including your hands if you're not careful) and is a key ingredient in curry, which accounts for the yellow color of most curries. I like curries of all kinds, mild to spicy, but I learned from the Berber women that turmeric is also great on baked or roasted fish.

Lately, several studies have looked at the effects of turmeric on the prevention of Alzheimer's. Previous research efforts have noted that the rate of Alzheimer's in people over 65 in the US is four times that of the same demographic in India. In fact, in some towns in India, less than one percent of the population over 65 have Alzheimer's. Naturally, diet is one place to look for the differences. And yes, turmeric is a grand antioxidant, which appears to significantly help prevent the plaques and tangles and related inflammation of Alzheimer's in the brain.

This finding, the latest in a series of similar findings over the last few months, came from research at the University of California, Los Angeles, led by Dr. Sally Frautschy.

The Slow But Gradual End of Alzheimer's As We Know It

As noted in Sunday's LA Times and this month's Science magazine, November 3 (or 4, depending on which publication you read) marked the hundredth anniversary of Dr. Alois Alzheimer's medical conference presentation of a patient's case with a neurogenerative disease that has come to be known as Alzheimer's Disease. The Neurophilopher's Weblog also did a fine recounting of the history. The LA Times states that another event will also be marked: "the slow but gradual end of Alzheimer's as we know it--and the Americanization of dementia science."

For the last 100 years, scientists have been trying to figure out what causes Alzheimer's plaques and tangles in the brain. Sadly, very few actual advances in therapies have occurred for people who have been diagnosed with AD. But as author Greg Critser points out, President Ronald Reagan and his family's openness about their struggles with AD have motivated researchers to begin looking at AD differently, both in ways to prevent it and therapies to deal with this tragic disease. In the therapeutic arena, stem cell research is one possibility. We know from research on brain plasticity that we can already "rewire" our brains so why not get a little help from transplanted neurons to make connections stifled by AD's plaques and tangles?

On the prevention side, researchers are looking at diet, exercise, mental stimulation, and "dysfunction" of brain cells due to other potentially controllable brain environmental factors, such as the way certain brain cells use glucose. Scientists are realizing that AD does not have to be totally linear in its progression. We are beginning to see solid research on strategies that can prevent or slow down AD and dementia as well as compensation strategies to help the brain create additional connections and pathways through mental stimulation and learning. Many, many scientists are now looking closely at these lifestyle decisions and concluding that it really does matter how you live your life and the choices you make along the way.


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