A blog reader alerted me to a Japanese Alzheimer’s case study published in October 2012. Here is the link to the abstract in PubMed: http://goo.gl/66V82. I hadn’t come across it, since I don’t really monitor curcumin for anything other than myeloma, MGUS or SMM. But I thought it was extreeeeeeeeemely interesting and decided to post about it today.

The full study, available for free online (just click here: http://goo.gl/mX5OQ), tells us that turmeric, not curcumin, was used in this study. The three Alzheimer’s patients involved in the study were given a daily dose of 764 mg of turmeric (= containing to 100 mg of curcumin, according to the authors). And even on such a tiny dose (of TURMERIC, to boot), the spice had a huge impact on their quality of life (QOL)…nothing short of amazing, in fact…For example, after a year of the turmeric treatment, they began to recognize family members…One woman started singing and laughing and knitting again…And so on.

You can read the patients’ stories in the full study. Impressive!

I do have a question, though: I wonder how much these (and other) patients would improve if they were given a higher dose of straight curcumin (not turmeric, i.e.)? Now that would be super interesting to know!!!

***Note: you will come across a few typos and mistakes in the full study. There is a huge one, for example, at the end of the Discussion part, where the authors write “impair” instead of “improve.” Obviously, they meant to write that curcumin improves cognitive function, not that it impairs it! However, in spite of its occasional creative use of the English language, the study is clear enough… 🙂