turmeric (curcumin)..thought this might interest some

[Guest guest]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950845/

It's kind of technical, but basically says that turmuric has been shown to

prevent the death of cells that make the insulating myelin for nerve cells in

some inherited neuropathies....another way turmuric might be helpful...

Gretchen

Mutations in myelin genes cause inherited peripheral neuropathies that range in

severity from adult-onset Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1 to childhood-onset

Dejerine-Sottas neuropathy and congenital hypomyelinating neuropathy. Many

myelin gene mutants that cause severe disease, such as those in the myelin

protein zero gene (MPZ) and the peripheral myelin protein 22 gene (PMP22),

appear to make aberrant proteins that accumulate primarily within the

endoplasmic reticulum (ER), resulting in Schwann cell death by apoptosis and,

subsequently, peripheral neuropathy. We previously showed that curcumin

supplementation could abrogate ER retention and aggregation-induced apoptosis

associated with neuropathy-causing MPZ mutants. We now show reduced apoptosis

after curcumin treatment of cells in tissue culture that express PMP22 mutants.

Furthermore, we demonstrate that oral administration of curcumin partially

mitigates the severe neuropathy phenotype of the Trembler-J mouse model in a

dose-dependent manner. Administration of curcumin significantly decreases the

percentage of apoptotic Schwann cells and results in increased number and size

of myelinated axons in sciatic nerves, leading to improved motor performance.

Our findings indicate that curcumin treatment is sufficient to relieve the toxic

effect of mutant aggregation-induced apoptosis and improves the neuropathologic

phenotype in an animal model of human neuropathy, suggesting a potential

therapeutic role in selected forms of inherited peripheral neuropathies.