Eating curry every week may prevent onset of Alzheimer's

Published on Wednesday 3 June 2009 20:55

EATING an Indian takeaway once or twice a week may help stave off Alzheimer's disease.

The spicy ingredient turmeric is believed to prevent changes in the brain that are linked to the disease.

A clinical trial is now under way in California to test the effects of curcumin, a component of turmeric, on a group of Alzheimer's patients.

Laboratory studies have already produced strong evidence that curry combats dementia, members of the Royal College of Psychiatrists were told at their annual meeting in Liverpool.

Indian-born American expert Professor Murali Doraiswamy said yesterday that curcumin appeared to block the spread of amyloid plaques. These are deposits of toxic protein in the brain that are thought to play a key role in Alzheimer's.

"You can modify a mouse so that at about 12 months its brain is riddled with plaques," said Prof Doraiswamy. "If you feed it a curcumin-rich diet it dissolves these plaques. The same diet prevented younger mice from forming new plaques.

"The next step is to test curcumin on human amyloid plaque formation using newer brain scans."

Rates of Alzheimer's are known to be low in Asian communities with turmeric-rich diets, said the professor.

One study in Singapore showed that regular curry eaters were at least half as likely to develop the disease as people who avoided curry.

"Studies looking at populations show that people who eat a curry two or three times a week seem to have a lower risk for dementia," said Prof Doraiswamy.