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Prevention of Neurodegeneration for Alzheimer’s Disease by Lycium barbarum

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Lycium Barbarum and Human Health

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that will affect more than 50 million people worldwide. AD is an aging-associated disease because the chance of suffering from AD is double after age of 65. This is a complex disease that is highly related to our environmental stress, experience of head trauma, our daily diet and exercise, quality of our sleep, and even air pollution. All these factors give multiple hits to our brain promoting neurodegeneration in the aging processes. As Lycium barbarum (Wolfberry) is an antiaging Chinese medicine, we have attempted to understand the scientific meaning of this antiaging medicine. In this chapter, we will at first summarize different risk factors leading to AD. Then, we will discuss how Wolfberry protects neurons against AD. Furthermore, we will discuss how Wolfberry prevents those risk factors leading to AD. As Chinese medicine emphasizes on prevention of disease by adjusting the whole body health from a holistic point of view, our understanding of Wolfberry will help us to advance our knowledge of how this natural product elicits multi-target effects to prevent the devastating problem of dementia.

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Acknowledgement

The work is supported by the Macau Science and Technology Development Fund (053/2013/A2) to Y.S.H., HKU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Network under Strategic Research Theme of Healthy Aging, Azalea (1972) Endowment Fund, and generous donation from Ms Kit-Wan Chow to RCCC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Department of Anatomy, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China

    Dr. Raymond Chuen-Chung Chang

  2. School of Nursing, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China

    Dr. Yuen-Shan Ho

  3. State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau SAR, People’s Republic of China

    Xiao-ang Li

  4. Institute of Chinese Medicinal Science, University of Macau, Macau SAR, People’s Republic of China

    Clara Hiu-Ling Hung

  5. Research centre of Heart, Brain, Hormone and Healthy Aging, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China

    Dr. Raymond Chuen-Chung Chang

  6. State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China

    Dr. Raymond Chuen-Chung Chang

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  1. Dr. Yuen-Shan Ho
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  2. Xiao-ang Li
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  3. Clara Hiu-Ling Hung
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  4. Dr. Raymond Chuen-Chung Chang
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Correspondence to Yuen-Shan Ho or Raymond Chuen-Chung Chang .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy, LKS Faculty of Medicine the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Raymond Chuen-Chung Chang

  2. Department of Anatomy, LKS Faculty of Medicine the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Kwok-Fai So

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Ho, YS., Li, Xa., Hung, CL., Chang, RC. (2015). Prevention of Neurodegeneration for Alzheimer’s Disease by Lycium barbarum . In: Chang, RC., So, KF. (eds) Lycium Barbarum and Human Health. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9658-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9658-3_7

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