Cranberry Inhibits Neurodegenerative Diseases in Vitro

Age-related neurological disorders or neurodegenerative diseases are the conditions of the progressive death of neurons due to aging, leading to the problems with movement (called ataxias), or mental functioning including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia.

Dementia is a general term of neurodegenerative disease that causes a decline in memory and thinking skills severe enough to reduce a person's ability to perform everyday activities and quality of life.

About 5-8% of all people over the age of 65 have some forms of dementia, and this number doubles every five years above that age.

Most common types of dementia are
* Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's destroys brain cells, causing problems with memory, thinking, and behavior severe enough to affect language communication, memory, lifelong hobbies or social life. Alzheimer's gets worse over time, and it is fatal.

Over 1 million people in the US alone are currently afflicted by Alzheimer's disease because of the degeneration of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex(3) of the brain where memory, language, and cognition are located.

* Absence of acetylcholine
Absence of acetylcholine is a condition caused by damage of nerves located in front of the brain, which lead to language difficulty, memory loss, concentration problem, and reduced mobile skills due to lacking reaction in muscular activity and refection and anxiety- and depression-like behaviors.

3. Dementia due to long-term alcohol abuse
Most classic form of the condition is the Korsakoff's dementia results in extremely poor short term memory often associated with the memory losses of confabulations due to diminished processing resources and/or an encoding or retrieval deficit.

* Dementia associated with Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a disabling, progressive condition that causes cognitive deficit due to the interruption of frontal-subcortical loops that facilitate cognition and parallel the motor loop, and the loss of substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) dopamine (DA) neurons.

Besides aging, geographical, hereditary and viral and toxicological exposure may also correlate to the development of the diseases on the elderly.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale) or ginger root, the second superfood used for thousands of years by mankind, is the genus Zingiber, belonging to the family Zingiberaceae, native to Tamil.

The root has been used in traditional and Chinese medicine for the treatment of dyspepsia, gastroparesis, constipation, edema, difficult urination, colic, etc.

In the course of continued finding a natural ingredient for the treatment of age-related neurological disorders (ANDs), researchers examined the effects of ginger used in traditional medicine for the treatment of various disease symptoms.

Cranberry is an evergreen dwarf shrub, genus Vaccinium, belongings to the family Ericaceae, native to Northern America and Southern Asia. Because of its health benefits, cranberry has been cultivated in some parts of the world for commercial profit and used in traditional and herbal medicine to treat wounds, urinary disorders, diarrhea, diabetes, stomach ailments, and liver problems.

On finding a potential compound for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, researchers examined the effect of purified cranberry proanthocyanidins (PAC-1A) on neuroblastoma (NB) cell lines.

On SMS-KCNR cells, PAC-1A caused a loss of proton motive force associated with the increase of generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that induce cytotoxicity in the tested cell line.

Furthermore, PAC-1A inhibited neuroblastoma (NB) cell proliferation by reducing the expression of the proteins associated with pro-survivals (Bcl-2, MCL-1, Bcl-xL) and increased levels of proteins associated with pro-apoptosis (Bax, Bad, Bid).

Moreover, pathways involved in apoptosis was also increased by the injection of PAC-1A compared to the inhibition of the expression of pathways involved in the promotion of cell cycle division.

More importantly, cyclophosphamide (CP), the chemo drugs used to suppress the immune system function also exhibited by the injection of PAC-1A.

In other words, PAC-1A and CP worked synergistically to increase cytotoxicity and expression of pro-apoptotic markers, reduced cellular antioxidants enzymes (glutathione (GSH) and superoxide dismutase (SOD)) levels.

Additional analysis of the anti-cancer activity of PAC-1A, researchers found that Additional features of PAC-1A also slow down the cancer cell cycle progression and induced cell death via TNF-family death receptor activity.

Based on the findings, researchers said, "PAC-1A has demonstrated the chemotherapeutic potential to treat a broad spectrum of NBs including highly malignant tumors that show resistance to standard chemotherapeutics and apoptotic stimuli".

Taken altogether, cranberry may be considered a remedy for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative disease, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Purified cranberry proanthocyanidines (PAC-1A) cause pro-apoptotic signaling, ROS generation, cyclophosphamide retention and cytotoxicity in high-risk neuroblastoma cells by Singh AP1, Lange TS, Kim KK, Brard L, Horan T, Moore RG, Vorsa N, Singh RK. (PubMed)
(1) Regulation of redox status in neuronal SH-SY5Y cells by blueberry (Vacciniummyrtillus L.) juice, cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon A.) juice and cyanidin by Cásedas G1, González-Burgos E2, Smith C3, López V4, Gómez-Serranillos MP. (PubMed)
(2) Most common diseases of 50 plus - Diseases of Central Nervous system - Dementia: The Types by Kyle J. Norton