Call it yellow ginger, haldi, turmeric or E100,
the yellow root of Curcuma longa, a staple
ingredient in curry, is turning out to be gratifyingly
healthy. Now Tze-Pin Ng and colleagues at the
National University of Singapore have discovered
that curry eating seems to boost brain power in
elderly people.
Curcumin, a constituent of turmeric, is an antioxidant,
and reports have suggested that it inhibits the
build-up of amyloid plaques in people with Alzheimer's.
Ng's team looked at the curry-eating habits of
1010 Asian people unaffected by Alzheimer's and
aged between 60 and 93, and compared their performance
in a standard test of cognitive function, the
Mini Mental State Examination. Those people who
consumed curry "occasionally" (once or more in
6 months but less than once a month) and "often"
(more than once a month) had better MMSE results
than those who only ate curry "never or rarely"
(American Journal of Epidemiology, DOI:
10.1093/aje/kwj267).
"What is remarkable is that apparently one needs
only to consume curry once in a while for the
better cognitive performance to be evidenced,"
says Ng, who says he wants to confirm the results,
possibly in a controlled clinical trial comparing
curcumin and a placebo.
From
issue 2563 of New Scientist magazine, 04 August
2006, page 18
