Tag: Alzheimer’s disease

Peanut Butter Test to Detect Alzheimer’s Disease

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Peanut Butter

UF researchers find that ‘peanut butter’ test can help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A dollop of peanut butter and a ruler can be used to confirm a diagnosis of early stage Alzheimer’s disease, University of Florida Health researchers have found. It’s as simple as that. (Published on Oct 8, 2013)

J Stamp

Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student in the UF McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste, and her colleagues reported the findings of a small pilot study in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences. Stamps came up with the idea of using peanut butter to test for smell sensitivity while she was working with Dr. Kenneth Heilman, the James E. Rooks distinguished professor of neurology and health psychology in the UF College of Medicine’s department of neurology.

She thought of peanut butter because, she said, it is a “pure odorant” that is only detected by the olfactory nerve and is easy to access.

She noticed while shadowing in Heilman’s clinic that patients were not tested for their sense of smell. The ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve and is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline.

Peanut Butter & Ruker

Stamps also had been working in the laboratory of Linda Bartoshuk, the William P. Bushnell presidentially endowed professor in the College of Dentistry’s department of community dentistry and behavioral sciences and director of human research in the Center for Smell and Taste.


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Curry Kills Cancer Cells

On By Paul2 Comments
By P Chong

Curry Chicken

Chemotherapy is not necessary the best treatment for cancer. Often there’s a simple unknown alternative which the giant drug companies are not too favoured that it be known. Also, if it is something so simple, patients tend to be sceptical about it.

Nonetheless, here’s one simple treatment available for esophageal cancer. This is too good to be true, for the Asians consume a lot of curry!

Believe it or not . . .

LONDON – A molecule found in a curry ingredient can kill esophageal cancer cells in the laboratory, suggesting it might be developed as an anti-cancer treatment, scientists said on Wednesday.

Researchers at the Cork Cancer Research Center in Ireland treated esophageal cancer cells with curcumin — a chemical found in the spice turmeric, which gives curries a distinctive yellow color — and found it started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.

The cells also began to digest themselves, they said in a study published in the British Journal of Cancer.

Previous scientific studies have suggested curcumin can suppress tumors and that people who eat lots of curry may be less prone to the disease, although curcumin loses its anti-cancer attributes quickly when ingested.

But Sharon McKenna, lead author of the Irish study, said her study suggested a potential for scientists to develop curcumin as an anti-cancer drug to treat esophageal cancer.

Cancers of the esophagus kill more than 500,000 people across the world each year. The tumors are especially deadly, with five-year survival rates of just 12 to 31 percent.

McKenna said the study showed curcumin caused the cancer cells to die “using an unexpected system of cell messages.”

Normally, faulty cells die by committing programed suicide, or apoptosis, which occurs when proteins called caspases are ‘switched on’ in cells, the researchers said.

But these cells showed no evidence of suicide, and the addition of a molecule that inhibits caspases and stops this “switch being flicked’ made no difference to the number of cells that died, suggesting curcumin attacked the cancer cells using an alternative cell signaling system.

U.S. researchers said in 2007 they had found curcumin may help stimulate immune system cells in the Alzheimer’s disease.

It is a known fact that drug companies will only spend money on research if the bottom line is attractive and provided too they can come through with a manufactured drug in place to duplicate the natural simple remedy – otherwise it’s counter-productive.

You probably know that there are a number of natural cure for cancer which are completely suppressed by drug companies!

This is all a question of capitalism in operation at the expense of human decency & compassion.

Please post your comments.