Abstract
Curcumin (diferuloylmethane), a polyphenol extracted from the plant Curcuma longa, is widely used in Southeast Asia, China and India in food preparation and for medicinal purposes. Since the second half of the last century, this traditional medicine has attracted the attention of scientists from multiple disciplines to elucidate its pharmacological properties. Of significant interest is curcumin's role to treat neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease (AD), and Parkinson's disease (PD) and malignancy. These diseases all share an inflammatory basis, involving increased cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation and oxidative damage to lipids, nucleic acids and proteins. The therapeutic benefits of curcumin for these neurodegenerative diseases appear multifactorial via regulation of transcription factors, cytokines and enzymes associated with (Nuclear factor kappa beta) NFκB activity. This review describes the historical use of curcumin in medicine, its chemistry, stability and biological activities, including curcumin's anti-cancer, anti-microbial, anti-oxidant, and anti-inflammatory properties. The review further discusses the pharmacology of curcumin and provides new perspectives on its therapeutic potential and limitations. Especially, the review focuses in detail on the effectiveness of curcumin and its mechanism of actions in treating neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and brain malignancies.
Highlights
Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is an intriguing ingredient with a rich history as a dietary spice and herbal supplement in ancient China and India [1]
Due to its multi-faceted pharmacology, concerted efforts have been made to evaluate the possibility of using curcumin for the treatment or prevention of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) [16, 17], Parkinson’s disease (PD) [18, 19] and brain tumors [20,21,22,23], which have so far demonstrated encouraging results
This review describes the recent findings regarding the effectiveness of curcumin in combating neurodegenerative disorders including AD, PD and brain tumors
Summary
Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is an intriguing ingredient with a rich history as a dietary spice and herbal supplement in ancient China and India [1]. This notion is supported by the structural changes of soluble A monomers with age from its random coil or -helix conformation into a -sheet which further leads to the formation of low-molecular weight oligomers, higher molecular weight complexes such as PF and ADDLs. A peptides consisting less than 41 amino acid residues, (A1–40) is the most prevalent form and less pathogenic in terms of AD development.
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