How the Plants You Grow Can Help Treat Alzheimer’s Disease
July 11, 2020 
Muraleedharan Nair, a Horticulture Professor at Michigan State University, is studying the human health benefits of plants for the treatment of diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, musculoskeletal diseases, obesity, type-2 diabetes, inflammation, and parasitic/microbial diseases.
Nair is currently working with the plant Withania somnifera on a therapeutic treatment to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. The fruit of this plant produces an antioxidant compound that he named withanamide. This compound and its analogs have been proven in lab tests and in vitro studies to slow the damage caused by the plaque on brain cells in Alzheimer’s patients.
“Alzheimer’s is one of the major diseases which has no treatment,” he says. “When we started looking at the biological activity of the disease, we found that these compounds would allow us to create a therapeutic drug that could prevent and slow down the advancement of the disease. Once we found withanamide is a powerful antioxidant, we discovered that it can be used directly for human health.”
Learn more in this Michigan State University article.
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