There is potentially good news for red wine lovers whose favorite tipple is Cabernet Sauvignon. Researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that moderate consumption of Cabernet Sauvignon, with its aromatic notes and attractive finish, can attenuate neural degradation in laboratory mice with Alzheimer's disease. The research concurs with earlier epidemiological studies that hinted at a connection between red wine and a reduced risk of Alzheimer's symptoms.

"This study supports epidemiological evidence indicating that moderate wine consumption, within the range recommended by the FDA dietary guidelines of one drink per day for women and two for men, may help reduce the relative risk for AD clinical dementia," explain Giulio Maria Pasinetti and Jun Wang of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

"Our study is the first to report that moderate consumption of red wine in a form of Cabernet Sauvignon delivered in the drinking water for 7 months significantly reduces AD-type a-amyloid neuropathology, and memory deterioration in 11-month-old transgenic mice that model AD," the researchers add.

But, what if you're not one for the vine? Perhaps you prefer something a little stronger. Well...researchers at Madrid's Complutense University and the Cajal Institute discovered in 2005 that a chemical cousin of the active component of cannabis, a cannabinoid, can stave off the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Now, work at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, has shown that the archetypal cannabinoid, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) itself, blocks the activity of the enzyme responsible for amyloid plaque formation in Alzheimer's disease. Kim Janda and colleagues described its activity as "considerably superior" to the Alzheimer drugs donepezil and tacrine.

There is no suggestion in these research papers that anyone worried about dementia should turn to pot for relief. Indeed, regular cannabis use has been found, in previous epidemiological experiments, to lead to memory loss and other problems. Nevertheless, the results do point to the possibility of developing novel pharmaceutical compounds that could alleviate the symptoms of this debilitating and stressful disease.

At the time of writing, new research at Columbia University Medical Center also emerged into the benefits of a "Mediterranean diet" rich in tomatoes, olive oil, citrus fruits, and oily fish in helping ward off Alzheimer's disease, as well as new evidence from UCLA that curcumin, from the spice turmeric, also disperses the amyloid-beta plaques characteristic of the disease.

http://www.scripps.edu/chem/janda/

FASEB J, 2006, Nov, in press NO LINK YET

J Neurosci, 2005, 25, 1904-1913 http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4540-04.2005

Mol. Pharm, 2006, in press; http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/mp060066m