Is there a cure in Curry?
It has been discovered that elderly villagers in India almost never suffer from Alzheimer's Disease.
Researches suspect that Curcumin the compound in the spice Tumeric that turns curry yellow has properties that discourages amyloid deposits, which may cause brain impairment.
Neurologists at the University of California, LA, explored this hypothesis by engineering amyloid-laden rats and putting some of them on a high curcumin diet.
Sure enough the curry-fed rats showed less amyloid accumulation than the others and did better on memory tests.
If further studies on humans confirm curcumin's protective effect, it will come as no surprise in much of India. Tumeric is a centuries-old traditional medicine.
