Vitamin D and Amyloid Plaques

Amyloid plaques are found abundantly in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. Why they accumulate is still unknown. One hypothesis has it that the plaques are an immune related reaction to a virus, possibly the herpes simplex virus. Some interesting work has just been published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease on work being done at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Earlier research showed that vitamin D3 and curcumin (the active ingredient in turmeric) stimulate the innate immune system to clear amyloid beta. They wanted to find out how this worked. They found macrophages, immune cells that gobble up amyloid beta, are stimulated by both the active form of vitamin D3, 1a,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 and to a lesser extent curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric. When vitamin D3 binds to its receptor on the cell, a chloride channel is opened, which is important in allowing the macrophage to gobble up amyloid beta. Furthermore, vitamin D3 also affects the cells ability to make more such chloride receptors as well as vitamin D3 receptors. Very interesting stuff....