Lovers of Indian
food, give yourselves a second helping: Daily consumption of a certain
form of curcumin — the substance that gives Indian curry its bright
color — improved memory and mood in people with mild, age-related memory
loss, according to the results of a study conducted by UCLA researchers.
The research, published online Jan. 19 in the
American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry,
examined the effects of an easily absorbed curcumin supplement on
memory performance in people without dementia, as well as curcumin’s
potential impact on the microscopic plaques and tangles in the brains of
people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Found in turmeric, curcumin has
previously been shown to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant
properties in lab studies. It also has been suggested as a possible
reason that senior citizens in India, where curcumin is a dietary
staple, have a lower prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and better
cognitive performance.
“Exactly how curcumin exerts its effects is
not certain, but it may be due to its ability to reduce brain
inflammation, which has been linked to both Alzheimer’s disease and major
depression,” said Dr. Gary Small, director of geriatric psychiatry at
UCLA’s Longevity Center and of the geriatric psychiatry division at the
Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, and the
study’s first author.
The double-blind, placebo-controlled study
involved 40 adults between the ages of 50 and 90 years who had mild
memory complaints. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either
a placebo or 90 milligrams of curcumin twice daily for 18 months.
All
40 subjects received standardized cognitive assessments at the start of
the study and at six-month intervals, and monitoring of curcumin levels
in their blood at the start of the study and after 18 months. Thirty of
the volunteers underwent positron emission tomography, or PET scans, to
determine the levels of amyloid and tau in their brains at the start of
the study and after 18 months.
The people who took curcumin
experienced significant improvements in their memory and attention
abilities, while the subjects who received placebo did not, Small said.
In memory tests, the people taking curcumin improved by 28 percent over
the 18 months. Those taking curcumin also had mild improvements in mood,
and their brain PET scans showed significantly less amyloid and tau
signals in the amygdala and hypothalamus than those who took placebos.
The amygdala and hypothalamus are regions of the brain that control several memory and emotional functions.