Garlic and Alzheimer disease

Posted by Chantel Martiromo  

Alzheimer's disease is a brain disorder correlated with major reductions of neurons to the respective target areas, named after German physician Alois Alzheimer. Alzheimer's destroys brain cells, causing cognitive modalities severe enough to affect language communication, memory, lifelong hobbies or social life. Alzheimer's gets worse over time, and it is fatal. 
According to statistic, over 25 million people in the world today are affected by dementia and most are suffering from Alzheimer's disease. It may be a result of  cigarette smoking, midlife high blood pressure and obesity, diabetes, and cerebrovascular lesions and psychosocial factors (eg, high education, active social engagement, physical exercise, and mentally stimulating activity)(1) 
Garlic is a natural superfood healer for its natural antibiotic with antiviral, antifungal, anticoagulant and antiseptic properties.
 S-allyl-L-cysteine (SAC), an active chemical constituents of garlic, showed to inhibit several pathological cascades related to the synaptic degeneration and neuroinflammatory pathways associated with AD. through up and down regulations(4) with intervention to prevent free radicals causes of deterioration of cognitive functions and neurobehavioral activities(5). The Central Food Technological Research Institute supported the binding ability of SAC to Abeta, inducing a partially folded conformation in Abeta.(6) and suggested that consumption of garlic may reduced risk of AD, due to inhibition of Abeta aggregation in human brain(7).

References
(1) Food combination and Alzheimer disease risk: a protective diet by Gu Y¹, Nieves JW, Stern Y, Luchsinger JA, Scarmeas N.(PubMed)
(4) The "aged garlic extract:" (AGE) and one of its active ingredients S-allyl-L-cysteine (SAC) as potential preventive and therapeutic agents for Alzheimer's disease (AD) by Ray B¹, Chauhan NB, Lahiri DK.(PubMed)
(5) S-allyl cysteine attenuates oxidative stress associated cognitive impairment and neurodegeneration in mouse model of streptozotocin-induced experimental dementia of Alzheimer's type by Javed H¹, Khan MM, Khan A, Vaibhav K, Ahmad A, Khuwaja G, Ahmed ME, Raza SS, Ashafaq M, Tabassum R, Siddiqui MS, El-Agnaf OM, Safhi MM, Islam F.(PubMed)
(6) Anti-amyloidogenic activity of S-allyl-L-cysteine and its activity to destabilize Alzheimer's beta-amyloid fibrils in vitro by Gupta VB¹, Rao KS.(PubMed)
(7) Garlic extract exhibits antiamyloidogenic activity on amyloid-beta fibrillogenesis: relevance to Alzheimer's disease by Gupta VB¹, Indi SS, Rao KS(PubMed)