Ginger, the Potent Anti Dementia Functional Spice

By Kyle J. Norton

Scientists may have found a kitchen and pungent for the prevention and treatment of dementia with no side effects, some studies showed.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale) or ginger root, the second superfood used for thousands of years by mankind, is the genus Zingiber, belonging to the family Zingiberaceae, native to Tamil.

The root has been used in traditional and Chinese medicine to treat dyspepsia, gastroparesis, constipation, edema, difficult urination, colic, etc.

 Dementia is a medical and degenerative disease characterized by the loss of mental ability that is severe enough to interfere with people’s every life and Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia in aging people.

About 5-8% of all people over the age of 65 have some form of dementia, and this number doubles every five years above that age.

The common causes of dementia are the progressive death of brain cells.

Epidemiologically, certain risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, excessive alcohol drinking, depression, lack of exercise and head injury are associated with the onset of dementia.

Medical conditions such as diabetes, obesity also affect the onset of the disease.

However, an unhealthy diet, in fact, the common cause of the onset of dementia in the Western world that many scientists are afraid to mention about.

Dr. Martha Clare Morris in the study “Nutrition and risk of dementia: overview and methodological issues” said, “A new diet, called MIND (Mediterranean–DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay), incorporates many elements of the Mediterranean and DASH diets but with modifications that reflect the best evidence for brain neuroprotection” and 

 The evidence in support of the relation of various nutrients and the Mediterranean diet to dementia has been inconsistent”.

These results clearly suggested that if you follow the Western diet you are at a substantially increased risk of dementia.

On the finding the natural ingredient and whole food for the prevention and treatment of dementia, researchers conducted a joint study led by the Kyung Hee University, to examine the effect of ginger chemical compound 6-shogaol in the modification of dementia.

6-shogaol, a bioactive component of ginger, may play an important role as a memory-enhancing and anti-oxidant agent against neurological diseases.

6-Shogaol also p[rocessed anti-neuroinflammatory effects lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced astrocytes (star-shaped glial cell of the central nervous system.) and animal models of Parkinson's disease, LPS-induced inflammation, and transient global ischemia.

Furthermore, application of 6-shogaol demonstrated anti-inflammatory effects against oligomeric forms of the Aβ (AβO) (plaque accumulation) in animal brains, and anti-scopolamine-induced memory impairment.

Moreover, application of 6-shogaol significantly protect the brain neuron against the pathogenic insults and destruction of nearby neurons in intrahippocampal AβO-injected mice and neurons in transmitting chemical and electrical signals throughout the body

More importantly, the chemical compound also elevated the nerve growth factor (NGF) involved in the regulation of growth, maintenance, proliferation, and survival of certain target neurons.

These result suggested that 6-shogaol may play a role in inhibiting glial cell activation and reducing memory impairment in animal models of dementia.

Interestingly, on finding the new chemical compound in ginger with the potential to treat dementia, researchers launched an analysis to fractionate the MeOH extract of I. jiadifengpi and found newly 6 chemical compounds

Compound 1 significantly enhanced neurite outgrowth in primary cell cultures of fetal rat cortical neurons and has the potential significantly to promote differentiation of multipotent neural stem cell line (MEB5 cells) into neurons.

Application of the MeOH extract of the root of Bangle (Z. purpureum) also exhibited neuritogenesis activity in PC12 cells at 25 μg/mL.

Chronic treatment with these compounds enhanced hippocampal neurogenesis in dementia model olfactory bulbectomized (OBX) mice.

At the final report, researchers wrote, "Compounds 5 and 6 had significant NGF-potentiating effects on PC12 cells whereas compound 5 enhanced prevention of amyloid β (Aβ) 42 aggregation".

Taken altogether, ginger with the abundant bioactive compound may be considered a functional food for the prevention and combined with the primary medicine for the treatment of dementia with no side effects.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) 6-Shogaol, an active constituent of ginger, attenuates neuroinflammation and cognitive deficits in animal models of dementia by Moon M1, Kim HG2, Choi JG3, Oh H4, Lee PK5, Ha SK6, Kim SY7, Park Y7, Huh Y8, Oh MS9. (PubMed)
(2) [Search of Neurotrophin-mimic Natural Products for Prevention and Treatment of Neurodegenerative Disease].[Article in Japanese] by Kubo M1. (PubMed)
(3) Nutrition and risk of dementia: overview and methodological issues by Martha Clare Morris. (PMC)