by Terrence Aym

Created on: February 13, 2011

Health advocates have known for years that the Indian curry spice turmeric has strong anti-inflammatory properties and is beneficial to the circulatory system and is a natural liver detoxifier.

Now medical researchers are confirming that one of the compounds in it has been shown to aid those that have suffered strokes.

A new pharmaceutical drug that has its origins in the spice has been found by researchers at

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to be helpful in repairing some stroke damage to the brain that is often caused immediately following a stroke.

Traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicine has used turmeric as part if its medical regimen. Although Indian doctors claim many different elements in the spice work synergistically to provide significant health benefits, Western laboratory research has focused on only one of its elements called curcumin.

Evidence from previous tests showed that curcumin can't breach the so-called "blood brain barrier." The barrier is known to protect the brain from poisons that may have entered the bloodstream through injury or digestion.

Aware of this, the team created "CNB-001," an artificially modified version of curcumin designed to allow its passage into the brain.

Hailing the breakthrough, the Stroke Association called it the "first significant research" demonstrating curcumin CNB-001 has the power to aid victims of strokes.

"This is the first significant research to show that turmeric could be beneficial to stroke patients by encouraging new cells to grow and preventing cell death after a stroke,” BBC. She added the spice is well known to have significant health benefits.

The leader of the study, Dr. Paul Lapchak of Cedars-Sinai, stated at the conference that the new drug seemed to positively affect "several critical mechanisms" that will aid in keeping brain cells alive after a stroke.

Strokes—especially debilitating ones that leave people partially or fully paralyzed, blind or unable to speak—often affect only one part of the brain and then trigger a chain reaction that affects a much greater area of the brain.

CNB-001 appears to repair four "signaling pathways," Dr. Lapchak explained. Those four are critical and identified as the ones that lead to a cascading destruction of healthy brain tissue.

Ahmed stressed, "There is a great need for new treatments which can protect brain cells after a stroke and improve recovery. This is the first significant research to show that turmeric could be beneficial to stroke patients by encouraging new cells to grow and preventing cell death after a stroke."

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