The finding has particular significance given that the world’s aging population means a rising incidence of conditions that predispose people to diabetes, which in turn is connected to dementia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Early intervention could help to reduce the burden, whether by halting the disease or reducing its impact, said Emeritus Professor Mark Wahlqvist, from the Monash Asia Institute at Monash University.<\/p>\n Professor Wahlqvist recently led a study in Taiwan that tested the working memory of men and women aged 60 or older who had recently been diagnosed with untreated pre-diabetes.<\/p>\n “Working memory is widely thought to be one of the most important mental faculties, critical for cognitive abilities such as planning, problem solving and reasoning<\/strong>,” he said.<\/p>\n “Assessment of working memory is simple and convenient, but it is also very useful in the appraisal of cognition and in predicting future impairment and dementia.”<\/p>\n In the placebo-controlled study, subjects were given one gram of turmeric with an otherwise nutritionally bland breakfast of white bread.<\/strong> Their working memory was tested before and some hours after the meal.<\/p>\n “We found that this modest addition to breakfast improved working memory over six hours in older people with pre-diabetes,” Professor Wahlqvist said.<\/p>\n Turmeric is widely used in cooking, particularly in Asia. Its characteristic yellow colour is due to curcumin, which accounts for 3 to 6 per cent of turmeric and has been shown by experimental studies to reduce the risk of dementia.<\/p>\n “Our findings with turmeric are consistent with these observations, insofar as they appear to influence cognitive function where there is disordered energy metabolis m and insulin resistance,” Professor Wahlqvist said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The study, which was published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition<\/em>, also involved a number of research institutes in Taiwan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Monash University media release: Adding just one gram of turmeric to breakfast could help improve the memory of people who are in the very early stages of diabetes… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[321,10,339,4,336],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17379,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17376\/revisions\/17379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Turmeric\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/turmeric.jpg\")
<\/a>Adding just one gram of turmeric to breakfast could help improve the memory<\/strong> of people who are in the very early stages of diabetes and at risk of cognitive impairment.<\/p>\n