Vitamin D3 and Curcumin Offer Hope to Alzheimer's Patients

New information which was published in the Journal of Alzheimer`s Disease, may help in the search for an answer to preventing Alzheimer`s. Promising results were obtained, using D3 alone or together with curcumin, an active ingredient in turmeric and curry. There is new hope that these two natural occurring substances may help boost the immune system and thus clear the brain of amloid-beta, which forms plaque, therefore giving hope and relief to Alzheimer`s patients.

Over 13 million people suffer from some sort of dementia associated with Alzheimer`s disease. This is caused by a build up of plaque from the deposits of amyloid-beta, causing an increase in cell damage. With this new study, there is hope for millions. There are many studies in the work that have found curcumin to be highly successful with animals and are now being tested on humans. They hope to have the results on humans very soon, so that it can be recommended to the general public. These studies have shown that D3 and curcumin together have reduced the oxidized damage to the brain and also decreased the inflammation.

In the past, scientists have found that two different groups of Alzheimer`s patients reacted differently: Type 1 patients responded to the curcumnoids and type 2 did not respond positively. These two types of patient results depend on the genes MGATIII and TLR-3, which allows the immune system to work properly and thus enables the immune system to ingest amyloid-beta.

"Since vitamin D and curcumin work differently with the immune system, we may find that a combination of the two or each used alone may be more effective - depending on the individual patient," said Fiala.

According to the UCLA team of researchers it is too early to be recommended at this point or to say what dose should be recommended. They also stated that more studies are in the works. The cost of Alzheimer`s disease is in excess of one hundred billion dollars in the US, so the fact of being able to use curcumin as an aide in the prevention is extremely exciting. Curcumin is very inexpensive and along with the necessity of D3, the cost to the patient could be minimal.

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