Alzheimer’s disease is perhaps the most dreaded illness for all of us, both our loved ones and ourselves. It’s a frightening disease, and researchers have yet to come up with a solution!With 1,275,000 sufferers, 1 in 4 French people over 65 will be affected by the disease by 2020 (1).
Small as it may be, all the good news about advances in the fight against this dreaded disease is to be welcomed.
Algae to combat Alzheimer’s
We already knew that algae were neuroprotective (2), capable of reducing the risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases through their depolluting action against heavy metals and various chemical pollutants such as PCBs (3) (4). Today, we learn that algae are also capable of combating Alzheimer’s disease.
In China, a clinical study involving over 800 patients revealed that a seaweed-based drug could reduce incipient Alzheimer’s symptoms. The study began with the observation that regular consumers of seaweed seemed to be more spared from Alzheimer’s disease.
Geng Meiyu’s research team at the Shanghai Institute of Medical Materials studied the chemistry of seaweed. They concluded that algae influence the composition of our intestinal microbiota, helping to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Algae are antibacterial and appear to eliminate certain bacteria implicated in the disease. In addition, their cleansing action may limit the accumulation of toxins that are more widely present in the brains of Alzheimer’s sufferers.
A seaweed-based drug is currently under study.
Foods to combat disease symptoms
Once again, Hyppocrates was right when he wrote “let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food!” It’s up to us to take care of our health by choosing our best foods. Let’s do everything in our power to avoid seeking treatment as a result of good preventive health. In addition to regular physical activity, we need to look after our lifestyle, which must include a healthy, wholesome and varied diet.
Seaweed has already been widely shown to have neuroprotective (2) and detoxifying properties, and recent clinical studies have been published (3),(4).
The virtues of microalgae such as spirulinaspirulina chlorella and many others, in our diet, have been reviewed in reference works that provide documented comparative lists, by Institutes such as Institute of Food and Technology (5) or open access publications PLOS (6).
Source : this study was published in the scientific journal Cell research.
Article published on November 08, 2019 by Lucie Dendooven (7)