logo
You May Have Ingredients in Your Spice Rack That Can Fight Alzheimer's

You May Have Ingredients in Your Spice Rack That Can Fight Alzheimer's

Yahoo23-03-2025
In case you needed an excuse to make your food flavorful (ahem, some of you know who you are), new research indicates that some ingredients you already have in your kitchen may be able to help fight Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
Certain herbs and spices are found to contain a special compound that's been shown in tests to reverse memory loss, reduce brain inflammation and more. What are they and what do we know about this promising development so far? Read on to find out!
Shakespeare lovers may recognize Ophelia's quote, "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance."
As it turns out, rosemary may also be for remembering.
A new study from The Scripps Research Institute reports that carnosic acid, a compound found in rosemary and sage, drastically improved brain function in mice.
The study, published in the journal Antioxidants, notes that when mice were given a stable form of carnosic acid, they showed a significant drop in brain inflammation, which is a major factor in Alzheimer's and dementia.
The mice also showed dramatically improved memory when researchers administered the carnosic acid.
Related:
"By combating inflammation and oxidative stress with this diAcCA compound, we actually increased the number of synapses in the brain," senior study author , Step Family Foundation Endowed Chair at Scripps Research, professor and clinical neurologist in La Jolla, California, said in a statement. "We also took down other misfolded or aggregated proteins such as phosphorylated-tau and amyloid-β, which are thought to trigger Alzheimer's disease and serve as biomarkers of the disease process."
Dr. Lipton and his team previously found antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties in carnosic acid, but because the substance is unstable (meaning likely to break down, decompose or otherwise change), it would prove tough to actually use in a drug.
In the new study, Dr. Lipton and his fellow researchers developed compounds from carnosic acid derivatives to find a more stable compound that produced the same results, which may later work in a drug. They monitored the mice for three months using the new compounds, which proved promising.
OK cool, but what does all that mean?
Related:
According to Dr. Lipton, in addition to anti-inflammatory properties, the carnosic acid derivative compounds reduced plaque and tau proteins in the brain to healthy levels.
"We did multiple different tests of memory, and they were all improved with the drug," Dr. Lipton said. "And it didn't just slow down the decline; it improved virtually back to normal.' Analysis of tissues also showed increased neuronal synaptic density and decreased formation of phosphorylated-tau aggregates and amyloid-β plaques."
Related:
The carnosic acid and its derivatives were also reportedly quite well-tolerated, meaning there would likely be few negative side effects if used in Alzheimer's or dementia drugs, though quite a bit more work needs to be done before that happens. That said, Dr. Lipton is optimistic that because the mice in his studies showed so few side effects, human trials on it may come sooner rather later.
Dr. Lipton also believes that, if nothing else, adding these compounds to existing medicines for conditions like diabetes, Parkinson's disease and heart disease may make them better tolerated than before.
Up Next:'diAcCA, a Pro-Drug for Carnosic Acid That Activates the Nrf2 Transcriptional Pathway, Shows Efficacy in the 5xFAD Transgenic Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease.' Antioxidants.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Scientists Discovered a New Alzheimer's Warning Sign—and It Has to Do With Your Sleep
Scientists Discovered a New Alzheimer's Warning Sign—and It Has to Do With Your Sleep

Yahoo

time6 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Scientists Discovered a New Alzheimer's Warning Sign—and It Has to Do With Your Sleep

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Alzheimer's disease is a devastating condition that impacts millions of families around the world. But scientists are still trying to pinpoint the elements that go into why some people develop Alzheimer's disease and others don't. Now, a new study suggests that your sleep patterns may play a role. The study, which was published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia, specifically looked at the relationship between REM sleep and Alzheimer's disease. But what's the link between the two and, more importantly, how can you use this information to lower your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease? A neurologist explains. Meet the expert: W. Christopher Winter, MD, a neurologist and sleep medicine physician with Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and host of the podcast. What did the study find? For the study, researchers looked at how long it took 123 people to reach rapid eye movement (REM) sleep for the first time after falling asleep, as well as several biomarkers linked to Alzheimer's disease. (REM sleep is a stage of sleep where your eyes move quickly and you dream, per the Cleveland Clinic. It's important for learning and memory, too.) Of the participants, 64 had Alzheimer's disease and 41 had mild cognitive impairment, while the others had normal cognitive function. All of the participants did a sleep study, as well as scans for biomarkers that indicated Alzheimer's. The researchers discovered that people who took longer to get to the REM stage of sleep were more likely to have biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease. Is there a relationship between sleep and Alzheimer's? The relationship between sleep and Alzheimer's disease is still being explored. The Alzheimer's Society notes that people living with dementia tend to have sleep issues, but the evidence is currently unclear on whether poor sleep is a risk factor for the disease. However, some research suggests that poor sleep could raise your risk of Alzheimer's. A study published in November found that 35 percent of people who were considered poor sleepers (and felt excessively tired during the day as a result) went on to develop motoric cognitive risk syndrome (MCR), which is considered a precursor to dementia. 'Poor sleep quality has been linked to Alzheimer's disease,' says W. Christopher Winter, MD, a neurologist and sleep medicine physician with Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and host of the podcast. 'Conversely, individuals who sleep well, and get consistent amounts of sleep on a consistent schedule, seem to reduce their risk of cognitive impairment.' Can a lack of REM sleep increase my risk of Alzheimer's? It's hard to say for sure at this point. While the researchers concluded that more studies are needed, they also said a slower movement to REM sleep could serve as a 'potential marker' for Alzheimer's disease. Given that good sleep is linked to good overall health, it can't hurt to try to improve your sleep. How can I get more REM sleep? Most people go through four to six sleep cycles a night, and REM sleep is part of that. Unfortunately, you can't dictate the stages of sleep you enter and when. What you can do is try to focus on getting good sleep, period. Winter offers up these tips to help support good sleep: Have a set bedtime and wake time, and do your best to stick to it. Limit alcohol and caffeine, especially avoiding caffeine later in the day. Try to be physically active, and aim to work out in the mornings to support your body's natural sleep/wake cycle. Create a good, consistent bedtime routine that helps you wind down for the evening. Be wary of sleep aids. 'Ironically, some sleep aids affect REM sleep,' Winter says. How can I reduce my risk of Alzheimer's? Researchers don't know exactly what causes Alzheimer's disease and dementia, making it tough to know for sure how to prevent it. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends doing these things to help lower your risk: Be physically active Try to prevent or manage diabetes Manage your blood pressure Try to prevent or correct hearing loss Try to limit or avoid drinking alcohol Try to limit or avoid smoking If you're struggling with sleep, Winter says it's important to consult with a healthcare professional sooner rather than later. They should be able to do a sleep study—which can give you more information on what's behind your sleep issues—and make personalized recommendations from there. You Might Also Like Can Apple Cider Vinegar Lead to Weight Loss? Bobbi Brown Shares Her Top Face-Transforming Makeup Tips for Women Over 50

Breakthroughs Changing The Diagnosis And Treatment Of Alzheimer's
Breakthroughs Changing The Diagnosis And Treatment Of Alzheimer's

Forbes

time7 hours ago

  • Forbes

Breakthroughs Changing The Diagnosis And Treatment Of Alzheimer's

Jerry Klauer, an Alzheimer's patient who received a recently approved therapy to treat the disease, ... More pictured last year in Florida with his wife Jana, a retired physician. In 2012, Phyllis Barkman Ferrell experienced a profound irony. The longtime veteran of Eli Lilly was leading a team preparing to launch a groundbreaking molecule to treat Alzheimer's when her own father was diagnosed with the disease. He became one of approximately 500,000 people diagnosed in the United States with the disease that year. Globally, over 10 million cases of dementia are diagnosed each year, with Alzheimer's contributing a large portion of the burden. Though Ferrell had rare access to top leaders working in the field, her father's path to a diagnosis was not straightforward, and never actually became clear. He spent a week in the hospital and endured a lumbar puncture and the insertion of a shunt in his brain. A PET scan, which can detect abnormal changes in the brain consistent with Alzheimer's disease, cost $10,000 and was not covered by insurance. When Ferrell asked a resident at the hospital to give her father an amyloid test, the resident responded, 'What's an amyloid test?' Amyloid refers to a protein that misfolds and accumulates pathological deposits in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. 'Imagine if I could have given him a blood test to see if he had amyloid,' says Ferrell, 'rather than a lumbar puncture and brain surgery?' In fact, that is exactly what has become available – along with two disease-modifying therapies. The New Alzheimer's Workup Today, if patients present with symptoms of memory loss to their primary care provider, they can be referred to a workup for Alzheimer's at a memory clinic with tools that weren't available even three years ago. 'We just got on base at a game that nobody had ever gotten a hit before,' says Ferrell, who now works with the Davos Alzheimer's Collective, a global public health initiative working to improve patients' access to the new innovations. In the new workup, patients can take a digital cognitive assessment, which compares their performance to a standard database. If the patient has a reasonably high chance of having Alzheimer's based on their presentation, then a blood-based biomarker test can be 'very good' at informing the diagnosis, says Dr. Greg Cooper, chief of adult neurology and director of the Memory Center at Norton Neuroscience Institute in Louisville, Kentucky. Jeff Burns, neurologist who co-directs the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the University of Kansas in Kansas City, has seen clinicians in his health system order 600 of the blood tests in 11 weeks since the in-house test became available, a sign of their high demand. 'They're very useful in the right context,' he says, adding that he would like to see their use increase in primary care, since memory clinics are 'overloaded' with patients. In Kansas, for instance, there's only one such clinic in the state. If the blood test is positive, patients can go for an insurance-approved PET scan or spinal fluid testing to determine if they are eligible for the new drugs. If the amyloid diagnosis is confirmed, patients can be prescribed one of two monoclonal antibodies, both FDA-approved in 2023, that can slow disease progression by targeting and removing pathological amyloid deposits in the brain. 'It's the first time we can actually alter the trajectory of disease,' Cooper says. A Patient Story Jerry Klauer, 83, is living proof of this remarkable paradigm shift. Several years ago, his wife Jana, a retired physician, began noticing a troubling change in his memory. He was forgetting dates and plans, though he had been impeccably on time before. He also struggled to recall recent events, and his driving became unsafe. Through a connection at the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, Jerry got diagnosed with Alzheimer's after a positive blood-based biomarker test and a PET scan confirmed high amyloid buildup. He then became eligible to join a clinical trial of one of the monoclonal antibodies (which has since been FDA-approved). 'I was very fortunate to get into the program early,' says Jerry, who is a co-founder of the Wall Street boutique investment firm Gerard Klauer Mattison and Company. Though he acknowledges that the drug is not a cure, it reduced his amyloid and improved his symptoms. Before he started the drug, his amyloid had to be in a certain high range to qualify. Now, his amyloid measures in the normal range. 'He's stable,' Jana says. 'If he wasn't doing this, he would be getting worse. Is his memory what it was when he was 30 or 40 years told? No, but he lives his life. It's a wonderful life.' Early Intervention Matters Jerry's Alzheimer's disease was not very advanced when he started the monoclonal antibody. That is when the medicine can be most effective. 'In the past,' says Greg Cooper, 'although wrong, people had a nihilistic approach, saying why should I be in a hurry to get a diagnosis? Now the urgency for a diagnosis is compelling.' A major question the field is seeking to answer is just how early does it pay to get diagnosed? The pathological changes in the brain from Alzheimer's start 15 to 20 years before symptoms begin. Current clinical trials that read out in 2027 are testing whether patients who have confirmed amyloid, but zero cognitive decline, stand to benefit from the monoclonal antibodies. Burns predicts that if a benefit is substantiated, there will be a major paradigm shift in screening for Alzheimer's disease. 'It could be coming quickly if the trials of the new drugs work to reduce risk in this population. And if they do, then we will be in a whole different world. Then everyone over 65 should be screened.' That said, amyloid is not the whole story on preventing or delaying Alzheimer's onset. It's an early feature, but removing amyloid only slows, not stops, the disease. 'The focus now is can we stop or slow tau from accumulating?' Burns explains. Tau is a protein that builds up in dead or dying neurons in Alzheimer's disease, and it spreads through the brain. First the amyloid buildup starts, and appears to accelerate the tau. 'So pulling the amyloid out looks like it slows the tau accumulation, but doesn't stop it,' says Burns. An experimental drug in phase 2 clinical trials uses a new approach to reduce the accumulation of tau. 'The tau comes much later than the amyloid,' explains Donna Wilcock, Director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disorders at Indiana University School of Medicine. 'Amyloid usually precedes the detection of tangle pathology by maybe 10 years. So we may have a 10-year window of catching that amyloid before it starts downstream tau.' In the last decade, researchers have learned that there is a tipping point at which the tau pathology is self-propagating, and the presence or absence of amyloid doesn't affect the tau – dubbed the 'cataustrophe.' 'It seems as though the earlier we can get these amyloid-lowering therapies into patients,' Wilcock says, 'the better the outcome.' What You Can Do To Lower Risk All the experts interviewed for this article stressed the importance of healthy lifestyle habits, which may prevent up to 45.3% of all dementia cases according to the Lancet Commission. These factors are essential: controlling hypertension, blood sugar, and cholesterol, getting regular exercise and seven to eight hours of quality sleep, having an active social life, and eating a largely plant-based Mediterranean diet. 'Controlling a lot of these factors in the mid-life period has the biggest impact on how they affect your risk for dementia later in life,' says Wilcock. 'Mid-life untreated hypertension greatly increases your risk for dementia later in life.' Her own blood pressure started rising in her 40s, and she pushed her primary care doctor to manage it aggressively, noting that she had to 'self-advocate' to get her doctor to take it seriously. 'Through better brain health and attention to modifiable risk factors, how can we eliminate half of dementia before it ever starts?' asks Greg Cooper. 'And for other half, how can we identify it and successfully intervene before we ever have symptoms? It may sound hyperbolic, but I can at least imagine that day.' Jeff Burns concurs that it's an optimistic time for the field, with a broader array of approaches in development than ever before. As of 2023, there were over 140 drugs in clinical trials for Alzheimer's. For patients like Jerry Klauer, breakthrough science is already a clinical reality. Such encouraging experiences and the rapid pace of advancements over the last few years gives me great hope that one day, this terrible disease itself will be long you to Kira Peikoff for additional research and reporting on this article.

Why Is ProMIS Neurosciences Stock (PMN) Up 180% Today?
Why Is ProMIS Neurosciences Stock (PMN) Up 180% Today?

Business Insider

time12 hours ago

  • Business Insider

Why Is ProMIS Neurosciences Stock (PMN) Up 180% Today?

ProMIS Neurosciences (PMN) stock surged on Monday after the precision medicine solutions company was granted Fast Track designation for PMN310 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This is a therapeutic candidate in development at the company to treat Alzheimer's disease. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Make smarter investment decisions with TipRanks' Smart Investor Picks, delivered to your inbox every week. ProMIS Neurosciences noted that PMN310 is currently undergoing a Phase 1b trial evaluating its safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and disease-relevant biomarkers in patients with early Alzheimer's disease. The company expects interim results from this trial in Q2 2026 and final results in Q4 2026. PMN stock was up 177.21% in pre-market trading on Monday, following a 6.38% drop on Friday. The stock has also decreased 53.67% year-to-date and 77.2% over the past 12 months. With today's rally came heavy trading, with more than 79 million shares traded, compared to a three-month daily average of about 3.5 million shares. Is ProMIS Neurosciences Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold? Turning to Wall Street, the analysts' consensus rating for ProMIS Neurosciences is Moderate Buy, based on two Buy ratings over the past three months. With that comes an average PMN stock price target of $3.50, representing a potential 695.27% upside for the shares.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store