Figure 5.

Interest in saffron or its major bioactive component crocin has been less than in resveratrol, lycopene, or curcumin, but it shows the same time course, beginning in the 1980s and growing rapidly since. Again, a significant minority (9%) of the studies concern cancer and a small minority (0.9%) concern neuroprotection, but make perhaps the most audacious claims—that saffron can slow otherwise intractable degeneration of central nervous tissue.