This is a total surprise
and we can expect strong potions based on this as a treatment for all
cases of brain injury and PTSD in particular. Otherwise it appears
to be a safe protocol as well.
I suspect that cases of
dementia will also see a benefit as this all encourages a more
vigorous natural recovery.
At least we now have
something that can help however modestly rather than nothing at all.
How WHOLE Turmeric Heals The Damaged Brain
October
3, 2014
Sayer
Ji,
Long
considered impossible to accomplish, new research reveals how a
simple spice might contribute to the regeneration of the damaged
brain.
Turmeric
is hands down one of the, if not the,
most versatile healing spice in the world with over 600
experimentally confirmed health benefits,
and an ancient history filled with deep reverence for its seemingly
compassionate power to
alleviate human suffering.
But,
most of the focus over the past decade has been centered on only
one of
its many hundreds of phytocompounds: namely, the primary polyphenol
in turmeric known as curcumin which
gives the spice its richly golden hue. This curcumin-centric
focus has lead to the development of some very good products, such as
phospholipid bound curcumin concentrate (e.g. Meriva, BCM-95)
which greatly helps to increase the absorption and bio-activity of
curcumin. But, curcumin isolates are only capable of conferring a
part of
turmeric’s therapeutic power – and therein lies the limitation
and hubris of the dominant ‘isolate the active ingredient’ model.
Indeed,
it has become typical within the so-called nutraceutical industry to
emulate the pharmaceutical model, which focuses on identifying a
particular “monochemical” tree within the forest of complexity
represented by each botanical agent, striving to standardize the
delivery of each purported ‘active ingredient’ with each serving,
as if it were a pharmaceutical drug. These extraction and isolation
processes also generates proprietary formulas which are what
manufacturers want to differentiate their product from all others and
henceforth capture a larger part of the market share; a value
proposition that serves the manufacturer and not the
consumer/patient.
Truth
be told, there is no singular ‘magic bullet’ in foods and herbs
responsible for reproducing the whole plant’s healing power.
There are, in fact, in most healing plants or foods hundreds of
compounds orchestrated by the intelligent ‘invisible hand’ of God
or ‘Nature,’ or whatever you wish to call it, and which can never
be reduced to the activity of a singularly
quantifiable phytocompound or chemical.
Beyond The Curcumin ‘Magic Bullet’ Meme
Now,
an exciting new study published in the journal Stem
Cell Research & Therapy
provides additional support for the concept that curcumin alone is
not enough to explain the healing power of turmeric as a whole plant.
The study found that a little known, fat-soluble component within
turmeric – Ar-tumerone –
may make “a promising candidate to support regeneration in
neurologic disease.”
Titled,
“Aromatic-turmerone induces
neural stem cell proliferation in vitro and in vivo,”
German researchers evaluated the effects of this turmeric-derived
compound on neural stem cells (NSCs) – the subgroup of brain cells
capable of continuous self-renewal required for brain repair.
The
study found that when brain cells were exposed to ar-tumerone,
neural stem cells increased in number through enhanced proliferation.
Moreover, these newly formed neural stem cells also increased the
number of fully differentiated neuronal cells, indicating a healing
effect was taking place. This effect was also observed in a live
animal model, showing that rats injected with ar-tumerone into their
brains experienced increases in neural stem cell proliferation and
the creation of newly formed healthy brain cells.
This
study did not go unnoticed by major medical news channels. Here are
some good reviews if you wish to explore the implications in greater
depth:
The GreenMedInfo.com Turmeric Database Confirms It’s Brain-Saving Power!
As
you may already know, our database is the world’s most extensive
open access natural medical database on over 1,800 different natural
substances, with over 1600 study abstracts on turmeric’s healing
properties indexed thus far: view the Turmeric
research page here
to view! If you take a look at the laundry list of over 600
diseases that this spice (or its components, e.g. curcumin) has been
studied for to prevent and/or treat, the sheer volume of supportive
literature is astounding. Amazingly, we have identified over 180
physiological pathways – according to their conventional
pharmacological characterization, e.g. COX-2 inhibitor, Interleukin 6
down-regulator – by which turmeric or its components heals the
human body. In addition, you will find over 100 articles on
turmeric’s neuroprotective properties on this page: Turmeric
as a Neuroprotective agent.
The
research clearly indicates that turmeric is a great brain supportive
plant. For a more layperson oriented review, read the following
articles:
How To Get The Most Out of Your Turmeric
One
of the most frequent questions we field is ‘what is the best type
of turmeric or curcumin to use’? Obviously, given the
aforementioned research, the whole plant is going to carry a wider
range of therapeutic compounds than curcumin alone. And yet, most
have been heavily enculturated to focus entirely on the ‘how much’
question, opting to identify the molecular weight (i.e. how many
milligrams in a serving) of a particular compound as more important
than the qualitative dimensions (e.g. is it organic? It is delivered
within its natural context as food or a whole plant?) which reflect
the type of nutrigenomic information the substance contains, and
therefore the ‘intelligence’ it embodies. To learn more about the
intelligence of food watch my e-course
‘The Wisdom of Food.’
And
really, there is no generic answer to a generic question about the
best way to take turmeric/curcumin. The question always comes from an
individual with a particular need, and so, recommendations must be
bio-individualized.
For
instance, if you have colonic inflammation or polyps, and you are
trying to use turmeric to reduce inflammation there or regress
precancerous growths, then using the whole plant is best versus a
highly bioavailable form of curcumin in capsule form (e.g. Meriva),
for instance, which will likely be absorbed by the small intestine
and mostly pass through the liver never getting adequate quantities
to the large intestine. So, in this person’s case taking a teaspoon
of relatively difficult to absorb turmeric may result in painting the
diseased surfaces of that person’s intestinal or colonic lumen with
exactly the form needed to reverse disease.
But
what if you have someone who wants to experience a systemic effect,
say, for arthritis or for brain cancer? In these instances, getting
turmeric compounds such as curcumin through the glucuronidation
barrier in the liver with a phospholipid-bound or black pepper
(piperine)
combination could be ideal. There is certainly a place for the
‘nutraceutical’ model when properly applied, especially when
provided as an adjuvant to the pharmaceutical model within an
integrative medical setting.
Ultimately,
the goal is not to wait to have such a serious health problem that
you have to force yourself to take a ‘heroic dose’ of any herb or
food extract. Better is to use small amounts in culinary doses in
combination with ingredients that synergize on a
physiochemical/informational and sensual basis (producing the all
important vitamin
P [pleasure]
as well!). Recently we actually featured a study that showed culinary
doses of rosemary helped improve memory whereas
higher ‘heroic’ doses impaired it!
This
is why exploring the use of turmeric in curries, or by adding a pinch
in a smoothie, may be an ideal daily supplementation approach, versus
capsules, whose questionably ‘natural’ capsules and excipients
all can add up to cause some stress on the liver you are trying to
protect with these natural interventions. Just remember quality
is everything and less is more!
About the Author
Sayer
Ji is the founder of GreenMedInfo.com, an author, educator,
Steering Committee Member of the Global
GMO Free Coalition (GGFC), and
an advisory board member of the National Health Federation.
He
founded Greenmedinfo.com in 2008 in order to provide the world an
open access, evidence-based resource supporting natural and
integrative modalities. It is widely recognized as the most widely
referenced health resource of its kind.
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