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Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

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Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#141

Post by bashcoder »

dumbneurologist wrote: post #135
mrguyorama wrote: post #4

>Because curcumin's anti-inflammatory properties may protect the brain from neurodegeneration My very first question was: Please provide a possible physiological pathway for this. I'm so glad it was answered in the very first sentence. So many of these "Superfood does X" studies are just trials with 10 people over a month, with no explanation as to __how__ it could possibly happen. It significantly increases the skep…

I am a neurologist. this is actually the exact opposite of what you should care about, which is "does it work to treat ___" In this trial, and 99% of other trials, there is no mechanism provided by the study, only a measurement of causality (which is the same thing as effectiveness). The authors may think they know based on other, prior, basic science research (as they are postulating here), but it does not affect th…

In your view, does this study fall short of answering the “is it true?” question?

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#142

Post by learc83 »

olympus wrote: post #50
mkempe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the age range was 51-84, so middle plus old age, not all "elderly". Normal people flourish and are in their prime around 50. Volunteers had "objective cognitive performance scores and clinical histories consistent with normal aging or MCI (i.e., mild neurocognitive disorder) and inconsistent with dementia (i.e., major neurocognitive disorder)." [emphasis added]

"Normal people flourish and are in their prime around 50." This is false. The only advantage people in their fifties have is experience. Your body is past its peak physically and mentally. People flourishing in their fifties are by and large reaping the benefits of things done in their younger decades, not because they are peaking. I'm not saying that someone that is 50 years old is decrepit, but ask nearly any acade…

>but ask nearly any academic and they'll tell you they were better when they were younger.

I don't think that's true at all outside of Mathematics.

>Ask nearly any athlete (ultramarathoners being an exception) and they'll tell you they were better when they were younger.

That's obvious.

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#143

Post by guelo »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #10
mrguyorama wrote: post #4

>Because curcumin's anti-inflammatory properties may protect the brain from neurodegeneration My very first question was: Please provide a possible physiological pathway for this. I'm so glad it was answered in the very first sentence. So many of these "Superfood does X" studies are just trials with 10 people over a month, with no explanation as to __how__ it could possibly happen. It significantly increases the skep…

For all the claims of bioavailability, I was surprised to see that Theracumin(R) doesn't seem to contain piperine[1] or any perines (which are usually in curry powder courtesy of black pepper). The 90mg dosage also seemed low, I have been taking 500mg of 95% extract daily for a couple of years. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9619120

Theracurmin's formulation is specifically designed to increase bioavailability without the use of bioperine.

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#144

Post by randomsearch »

dumbneurologist wrote: post #135
mrguyorama wrote: post #4

>Because curcumin's anti-inflammatory properties may protect the brain from neurodegeneration My very first question was: Please provide a possible physiological pathway for this. I'm so glad it was answered in the very first sentence. So many of these "Superfood does X" studies are just trials with 10 people over a month, with no explanation as to __how__ it could possibly happen. It significantly increases the skep…

I am a neurologist. this is actually the exact opposite of what you should care about, which is "does it work to treat ___" In this trial, and 99% of other trials, there is no mechanism provided by the study, only a measurement of causality (which is the same thing as effectiveness). The authors may think they know based on other, prior, basic science research (as they are postulating here), but it does not affect th…

The problem with “is this true?” Investigations is that there are tons of potential pitfalls and a combination of experimental limitations, poor academic incentives, and insufficient statistical and scientific training make this very hard to do well. I think it’s bad science, that will one day retrospectively be viewed as invalid scientific method.

I think the way to combat this is to avoid studies that solely attempt to demonstrate an effect, but to complement that part of an investigation with additional studies that demonstrate a plausible explanation. This reduces the risk of false positives and increases our confidence in the result.

The additional studies could take the form (for example) of deliberately intervening such that the effect should be manipulated by the intervention in a predictable and measurable way. Essentially, come at the hypothesis “from another angle”.

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#145

Post by askvictor »

elchief wrote: post #133

Anti-inflammatories are in the news lots now. Low-dose aspirin, intermittent fasting, turmeric. Why are we chronically inflamed?

There are a few theories around, mostly around the changes in lifestyle in the last couple of hundred years compared to what we're evolutionarily accustomed to. Things like not walking/exercising nearly as much as we once did, a much more refined and sugary diet, much less exposure to pathogens (lazy immune system theory).

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#146

Post by olympus »

mkempe wrote: post #130
olympus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Normal people flourish and are in their prime around 50." This is false. The only advantage people in their fifties have is experience. Your body is past its peak physically and mentally. People flourishing in their fifties are by and large reaping the benefits of things done in their younger decades, not because they are peaking. I'm not saying that someone that is 50 years old is decrepit, but ask nearly any acade…

So you say you don't call people who are 50 "decrepit" -- but do you call people in their middle age or in their 50s "elderly"?

I didn't make that comment. However, I would say that people in their fifties have started to experience age-related decline in numerous areas (memory included). Showing a memory improvement in people 50-80 should be more accurately described as "restoring" their memory rather than "boosting" it, which implies that they now have supranormal memory.

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#148

Post by ng12 »

noir_lord wrote: post #136
ng12 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I really wouldn’t say that these populations are particularly healthier How would you be able to tell?

By sampling them against other cultures, the same way we know Japanese people have lower rates of heart disease than western European/Americans.

That's not a useful avenue -- you have no control group. We can't compare people from India who eat a lot of curry to people from the US who don't: there are a million differences in diet, lifestyle, genetics, and environment that make it impossible to draw a conclusion about how it affects memory.

Your example is a good one actually: we know Japanese men are less prone to heart disease, but we don't conclusively know why. We can guess it's related to certain factors, e.g. fish consumption, but we can't know just by comparing the two cultures.

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#149

Post by [deleted] »

randomsearch wrote: post #144
dumbneurologist wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a neurologist. this is actually the exact opposite of what you should care about, which is "does it work to treat ___" In this trial, and 99% of other trials, there is no mechanism provided by the study, only a measurement of causality (which is the same thing as effectiveness). The authors may think they know based on other, prior, basic science research (as they are postulating here), but it does not affect th…

The problem with “is this true?” Investigations is that there are tons of potential pitfalls and a combination of experimental limitations, poor academic incentives, and insufficient statistical and scientific training make this very hard to do well. I think it’s bad science, that will one day retrospectively be viewed as invalid scientific method. I think the way to combat this is to avoid studies that solely attemp…

[deleted]

Re: Curry spice turmeric boosts memory by nearly 30%, eases depression, study finds

#150

Post by pjmorris »

dumbneurologist wrote: post #135
mrguyorama wrote: post #4

>Because curcumin's anti-inflammatory properties may protect the brain from neurodegeneration My very first question was: Please provide a possible physiological pathway for this. I'm so glad it was answered in the very first sentence. So many of these "Superfood does X" studies are just trials with 10 people over a month, with no explanation as to __how__ it could possibly happen. It significantly increases the skep…

I am a neurologist. this is actually the exact opposite of what you should care about, which is "does it work to treat ___" In this trial, and 99% of other trials, there is no mechanism provided by the study, only a measurement of causality (which is the same thing as effectiveness). The authors may think they know based on other, prior, basic science research (as they are postulating here), but it does not affect th…

I am having trouble accepting your argument. Judea Pearl presents [0] the debate over whether smoking causes cancer as an illustration for why correlation is not sufficient. Two plausible, contradictory, models ('smoking causes cancer', 'no it doesn't, something else does') could not be settled by observing correlations. The debate was resolved through the addition of an explanatory mechanism, and a test of the mechanism's influence. Pearl, and others, have worked on the mathematical machinery necessary to examine this kind of causality.

[0] http://singapore.cs.ucla.edu/LECTURE/lecture_sec3.htm

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