I do think Curcumin and predominantly veg diet are contributing to low incidence of PD in India. But the difference between western countries and India may not be as the present data suggested. Lindy is also correct about the number of cases reported.. There is yet another problem: the stigma attached to any disorder that is related to brain, and PD is considered a "mental disease". Nobody with the right mind announces that they have a "mental problem"!! So even people or families who know the diagnosis will not openly admit to it. Many times family i.e, husband/father/son/brother knows but not the patient and sometimes no one except the doctor. yes, it is true I have seen such incidents.

girija

Hi Lindy,
Yes, I agree that the low India figures can in part be due to a number of factors. But the difference is so huge, I believe statisically, curcumin plays a partial role in the low prevelance.
Factors which may reduce the India figures are low reporting of the disease as you have mentioned, and the lower expectation of life figures,
Western people live longer, and the incidence goes up logarithmically as you get over 60 to 70.


Ron

While I of course agree that curcumin has active properties, I am still unable to make a direct correlation with figures from India. The Parsee community has one of the highest incidences of PD, and they do use turmeric, and they are mainly privileged economically. Their practice of burning seeds is thought to be the cause of PD, and turmeric has not protected them from that.

In a wider context the factors that Girija mentions lead to an almost active reluctance to seek treatment. I would extrapolate this particularly to the case of people who have children of marriageable age, as the stigma attached to these things is generational, and deeply distressing for families who are affected. Once it is named it can be used to shame. A powerful incentive not to be counted......

Even though there is a long tradition of actually identifying and treating PD, to say that was widespread and uniform across centuries in Asia would also be inaccurate, and as it is today the vast majority of people just subsisting never did have access to the same as the better off. Looking at the history of the sub-continent there was wave after wave of cultural change, just as elsewhere, and there were large periods of time where there were no patrons of learning and knowledge, and no medical provision,even monasteries and temples had their rise and fall over time, records are very scanty, you have to look very hard to find them. The recent resurgence of ayurveda, and it's popularity are not an indicator either.

Curcumin MAY be neuroprotective, but it does not offer protection from PD. I should know, I love the food from my other home, Sri Lanka, which culturally has a lot in common with India, and have eaten it all my life, as did my grandmother who lived all her life there. Both with PD. Cause unknown.

The understanding of different cultures do not translate directly, and it is unwise to assume that what you read is the same as what you find on the ground.

An example of this is the annonaceae family of fruits, partially implicated in the high incidence of PD in Guam, and in some West Indian islands, producing what researchers have seen as a distinct form of parkinsonism. These fruit are widely found throughout tropical Asia, they were introduced by colonial planters, and are consumed by millions of people. Yet there is no local reporting or history of an increase in PD-like conditions in the probably 300 years since they were introduced. You would think that there would be, in such a large area of the world. So is the Guam incidence wrong, and the West Indian incidence too? There are other factors for Guam, but not for the W Indies, so people are trying to make sense of that, and why the parkinsonism is distinct. AND how it relates to subtypes described in Asian and West Indian communities in the UK. Currently fruit growers in the US are questioning the wisdom of marketing the custard apple because this question as yet has no answer.

Currently there is no way of knowing. That is the big thing with PD. NOBODY really does know yet. About any of the potential causes, or cures.

So I eat plenty of food with turmeric, it tastes good and possibly helps me. Is it neuro protective? How is that possibly provable? But it makes me feel better to do it, it's an excuse to make my kind of food, and it's anyway healthier than the dangerous pre-prepared food I default to when PD renders me unable to cook the way I like. And I don't eat annonaceae fruit, even though I find them delicious.......

I hold on the assumptions too, historical, cultural, and otherwise, because this is a disease that has been described and treated unsuccessfully for many centuries in many countries. If it were otherwise there would be an effective treatment in the here and now.

If we used the same logic we would advocate smoking ..... many cultures did that for centuries too..... the statistics say that PD is less prevalent among long term smokers. I was one of those too......

The best I have seen so far is keep moving, no matter how difficult you find it, and do it regularly, even when the going gets tough. We definitive know that this helps keep our neural pathways intact.

Lindy

Hi Lindy,
As I have said, I agree you have to be cautious in interpreting figures, but I do think that there is sufficient data saying that curcumin (or Tumeric) has a positive influence on PD symptoms. I accept it is not known how or why this happns, but the beneficial effects have been established. In particular, it seems to slow progression. There is a lot of respectable papers showing beneficial effects, which you can't discount.

If you feed
Curcumin Parkinson's "cognitive decline"
into Google, you get over 3,000 hits, and a selection is given below.
Lindy, I am not trying to prove you wrong, I agree with your caution. But a number of the newer members have expressed an interest in curcumin and
I thought I would show just a small selection of papers on the topic.
Best Wishes
Ron


http://www.armstrongclinic.com/Newsl...inter_2009.pdf
Around the world where turmeric is a part of one’s daily
diet, epidemiological studies have shown these people
have a lower incidence (of AD) (4.7 per 1000) compared to those
who do not (17.5 per 1000)

http://www.life-enhancement.com/arti...plate.asp?ID=6
Turmeric May Help Prevent Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases
Consider this: elderly (aged 70-79) residents of rural India, who eat large amounts of curry, appear to have the lowest incidence of Alzheimer's disease in the world: 4.4 times lower than that of Americans.2 Does that mean that curry helps prevent Alzheimer's? Perhaps, but it's impossible to say, because innumerable other factors (dietary, genetic, social, economic, lifestyle-related, etc.) would have to be taken into account, and systematically ruled out, before any such conclusion could be drawn. But the correlation is suggestive, and there are scientific reasons for believing that there may indeed be a real effect there.

http://www.bri.ucla.edu/bri_weekly/news_060206.asp

Modern medicine is starting to sit up and pay attention. Scientists are taking a closer look at this Asian wonder spice, teasing out active ingredients and testing its age-old cultural and medicinal uses in 21st century laboratories. The National Institutes of Health has funded at least eight studies investigating turmeric. The spice and a chemical it contains — curcumin — are being probed for their potential to prevent and treat a broad range of diseases: cancer, cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer's and arthritis.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/129787.php
. Now researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have shown in a laboratory model of Parkinson's disease that curcumin does protect cells from dying.


http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/129787.php
To test the protective effects of curcumin, the research team used a Parkinson's disease cell model system. They tested curcumin on nerve-like cells that make a mutant form of the protein alpha-synuclein, called A53T, that clumps together inside of cells to cause harmful biochemical and cellular changes that eventually kill the cells. A53T alpha-synuclein causes 50 percent of untreated cells to die, whereas only 19 percent of A53T cells treated with curcumin died. Further research showed that curcumin itself reduces oxidative damage.

"These results suggest that curcumin is a potential candidate for inhibiting the oxidative damage that leads to Parkinson's disease," says Wanli Smith, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Hopkins. "This common curry spice could be a weapon to protect the brain."

http://ihealthbulletin.com/blog/2009...ne-parkinsons/
Galvin had earlier found that curcumin, a derivative of the spice turmeric, blocks alpha-synuclein aggregation in cell models of Parkinson’s disease.

http://www.livestrong.coSignificance
Turmeric is derived from the Curcuma longa plant. It is a gold-colored spice commonly used in India. Curcumin is a major component of turmeric and gives turmeric its unique yellow color. Curcumin is used as a spice and a food coloring agent. It has powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Curcumin belongs to a group of antioxidants known as polyphenols. Curcumin is very safe, and it has at least 10 known neuroprotective mechanisms.m/article/28101-curcumin-parkinsons-disease/

http://ihealthbulletin.com/blog/2009...ne-parkinsons/
Curcumin prevents cognitive decline in lab model of Parkinson’s disease

Hi Ron,

I know you are a great proponent of curcumin, and rightly so. I DO think it has promise, but I also think that it is right that the way data, ALL data, is taken and scrutinized, not just accepted because our world will take anything and everything and make claims for it in order to create an expensive market.

The links you have posted offer a good start point for scrutiny so that individually we can make some sense of things - thank you so much for adding them. It makes it a good discussion!

The way this thread came about, and Girija's clarification of the issue show how easy it is for distortions in understanding to appear, and one of my reasons for posting in the way I have is that there is a certain 'exoticising' aspect to supplements and alternative therapies, in a way as a result of the lack of transparency and ethics in allopathic treatments. Exotic supplement good, pharmaceutical bad. Woolly thinking....

Curcumin deserves to be studied deeper, and while that is happening, at least it has been trialed by many people for a very long time! It is the figures and justifications that I worry about......

Given it's antiseptic qualities I have wondered whether the neuro-protection it is claimed it offers might come from it acting on the causes of inflammation that Rick discusses. I have certainly heard of it being used in rural situations as a wash for use on the umbilical stump on the navel of newborns, on nose and ear piercings, as well as on other wounds in dressings, and of thread boiled in water to which turmeric has been added being used as emergency sutures. In all these situations as a normal and effective procedure.


Lindy

Yep, I agree with you on the anti-inflammation aspect of it, that's where I think it helps things. Perhaps also, those curry-lovin' people in other parts of the world don't inhale their food like they haven't eaten in years, as far too many people do here in the US...just go to wal-mart or sam's or costco, really anywhere, and look at the size of the behinds meandering aisle through aisle. It's no wonder we have higher incidence of PD (and everything else) when we gulp our food down practically whole, while driving a car, talking on the phone, working at a desk, etc. etc. The Italians are onto something with their "slow food" movement to counteract the ridiculous "fast food" industry that is such a huge (ha, ha!) part of our culture right now.

But the anti-inflammatory aspect of curcumin, yes, I think that is where the help comes in. Thanks for your well-thought out input on this issue, we all need to be careful of all claims, regardless of whether they concern a "natural", Rx or OTC product.

Since inflammation weakens the BBB, that could be the connection.

Has anyone tested for the optimum dosage amount per pound of parkinsoned person (sorry, couldn't resist the alliteration)? I've been reading Rick's concerns about too much of a good thing may be a bad thing, and I want to make sure I'm not overdoing it.

Jon

Yes Rick, right again!! Curcumin reduces the permeability of the BBB, (as well as being anti-inflamatory, a powerful antioxidant, a chelator of toxic metals, and other beneficial properties).

Aquario,
I sent you a private message
Best wishes
Ron