Title:Natural Polyphenols in the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease
Volume: 19
Issue: 8
关键词:
胆碱酯酶抑制剂,姜黄素,表没食子儿茶素-3-没食子酸酯,N-甲基-D-天冬氨酸,神经变性疾病,多酚化合物,白藜芦醇
摘要: Neurodegenerative disease is an incurable disease which involves the degeneration or death
of the nerve cells. Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease discovered in 1906 by
Alois Alzheimer, a German clinical psychiatrist and neuroanatomist. The main pathological hallmarks
of this disease are the formation of extracellular amyloid β (Aβ) plaques and intracellular neurofibrillary
tangle (NFT). The accumulation of the amyloid protein aggregates in the brain of AD patients
leads to oxidative stress and inflammation. Other postulated reasons for the development of this disease
are cholinergic depletion and excessive glutamatergic neurotransmission. The current drugs approved
and marketed for the treatment of AD are cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEIs) and N-methyl-Daspartate
(NMDA) receptor antagonists. The function of ChEIs is to avoid cholinergic depletion;
whereas the function of NMDA receptor antagonist is to block excessive glutamatergic
neurotransmission. Unfortunately, the current drugs prescribed for AD show only modest improvement
in terms of symptomatic relief and delay the progression of the disease. This review will discuss
about several polyphenolic compounds as potential natural treatment options for AD. Three compounds
are highlighted in this review — Curcumin (Cur), Resveratrol (Rsv) and Epigallocatechin-3-
gallate (EGCG). These compounds have huge potential for AD treatment, especially due to their low
frequency of adverse events. However, the current conventional pharmaceutical drugs remain as the
mainstay of treatment for AD.