3. Black Tea Theaflavins
PAI-1 inhibitors have been found in preclinical studies in the pathogenesis of vascular remodeling, renal injury, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s and cancer.
Thus researchers feel that PAI-1 is a potential therapeutic target in some of these diseases because in a nutshell, when the PAI-1 gene is expressed, it can go on to cause Alzheimer’s disease.
A previous study has revealed that a black tea extract that contains mostly theaflavins, inhibits the PAI-1 gene being expressed. This study was published in the International Journal of Molecular Medicine.
4. Rosemary
Rosemary leaf extract has been found to improve memory impairment according to a study published in Fitoterapia – The Journal for the Study of Medicinal Plants. Researchers concluded that adding rosemary leaf to a person’s diet and medication plan can be valuable for the treatment of dementia, as well as for being used in the prevention of dementia.
This initial study was carried out on rats, and showed that the administration of 200 mg/kg of rosemary plant extract improved their long term memory.
5. Cinnamon
Another antioxidant rich herb is cinnamon. With a recent study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 2009 stating that Ceylon cinnamon inhibited tau aggregation and filament formation, both of which are standard hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease.
The extract can also promote complete disassembly of recombinant tau filaments and cause substantial alteration of the morphology of paired-helical filaments isolated from the Alzheimer’s disease brain.
In the study, cinnamon extract was not deleterious to the normal cellular function of tau, namely the assembly of free tubulin into microtubules. An A-linked proanthocyanidin trimer molecule was purified from the extract and shown to contain a significant proportion of the inhibitory activity. Treatment with polyvinylpyrolidone effectively depleted all proanthocyanidins from the extract solution and removed the majority, but not all, of the inhibitory activity.
The remainder inhibitory activity could be attributed to cinnamaldehyde. This work shows that compounds endogenous to cinnamon may be beneficial to Alzheimer’s disease themselves or may guide the discovery of other potential therapeutics if their mechanisms of action can be discerned.
Treat Alzheimer’s With Mother Nature
At present there is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Perhaps all this time we have been looking in the wrong places for this cure, and the answer for both preventing and treating current Alzheimer patient’s lies in Mother Nature. These ‘cures’ could be found in the form of simple herbs we often don’t give much thought too.