Curcumin's Cognitive Benefits Look Convincing

Latest Data on Curcumin

Hi. I am Dr Richard Isaacson, director of the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian in New York City, here on behalf of Medscape.

You may have heard the exciting news about curcumin and its potential for treating Alzheimer's disease. A recent study by Gary Small and colleagues,^[1] published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, showed something really interesting. It was the first study that used a randomized trial design in a small group of 40 patients (aged 50 to 90) with mild memory complaints, who received either placebo or a specific type of curcumin with very small nanoparticles.

Why is this important? In the past, curcumin had trouble with absorption in a variety of supplements that were tried. For example, several years back, John Ringman and colleagues^[2] published results in a group of patients with Alzheimer's disease, in which they found that curcumin was not effective for delaying or helping symptoms in any way. When they looked at the patients' blood, they found that the curcumin pills were not getting absorbed.

The philosophy behind this new nanoparticle version of curcumin (Theracumin®) is that it will lead to better absorption. When this trial was performed, not only did the patients who were randomized to the active form of curcumin have improved memory function at 18 months, but they actually had less amyloid in specific parts of their brain that correlated with Alzheimer's disease.