Can Jellyfish Protein Enhance Memory Decline?

When we were kids, our parents used to take us to Virginia Beach for our annual summer holidays.  For two weeks, we would frolic on the beach, riding waves, building sand dunes, throwing our Frisbee back and forth.  


That is until the dreaded jellyfish arrived.  All you had to do was listen for the shrieks to begin a kilometer away, and you knew that you had precious moments before you had to get out.  It was either that or swim amongst an onslaught of jellyfish.  The other Quebecers and my family never really got accustomed to the jellyfish, so you would see most of the Canucks pull back onto the sand, as far away from the stomach churning mounds of jelly that would take over Virginia Beach every July/August.  Not for us, we all screamed.  


Now it appears that there might be an actual benefit, maybe enough to admire those mounds of jelly.  In todays Toronto Star, we learn of upcoming clinical trials on using the jellyfish calcium-binding protein, to possibly improve the memory loss and eventual cognitive changes that are brought on by Alzheimers.


Although supplements are available today at some health stores, it remains to be seen whether the 2008 Nobel Prize for chemistry awarded to three scientists on the identification of the qualities of the jellyfish protein can stand up to more rigorous trials of people with more than moderate memory impairment.


Usually, I refrain from commenting about the many different drugs or trials conducted on treating any of the degenerative diseases, but for some reason this one caught my eye.  Maybe because it involved a childhood foe that ruined many a day during our summer holiday.


We will watch this carefully and report back in the future.