Biological activities and chemical constituents of Araucaria angustifolia: An effort to recover a species threatened by extinction

Background: Araucaria angustifolia (Bert.) O. Kuntze (A. brasiliensis), known as Paraná pine, is the sole native gymnosperm of the Atlantic forest in Brazil and has great economic, cultural and social importance. Its seed, known as pinhão, has been consumed since prehistoric times. Besides the nutritional aspects, different parts of A. angustifolia are also used in the Brazilian folk medicine for the treatment of rheumatism, respiratory infections, fatigue, anemia, among other disorders. Timber exploration has dramatically reduced the species population, and currently, A. angustifolia is classified as vulnerable regarding the risk of extinction. Scope and Approach: This review presents the most recently uncovered details about the chemical composition of the various parts of the plant. Emphasis is given to the main isolated and identified compounds or fractions and their corresponding bioactivities. Key Findings and Conclusions:.Apart from the nutritional properties of the pinhão, particularly as a starch source, this review reveals that a number of biological activities have been found in different parts of A. angustifolia (leaves, bark and pinhão coat), such as protection against DNA UV-induced damage, antioxidant, antiinflammatory, antiviral and digestive enzyme inhibiting activities. Further investigations should include parts of A. angustifolia that are currently discarded, such as the bark, bracts and the pinhão coat, with potential for use in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Studies on A. angustifolia must combine two important elements: the need for preservation of a typical ecosystem and the implementation of the A. angustifolia forests as a true economic alternative for local residents.The authors thank the Fundação Araucária for funding this study. R.F. Oliveira, R.C.G. Correa, L. Bertonha and V.G. Correa thank Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento do Pessoal do Ensino Superior (CAPES) for the financial support provided for their post-graduate studies in Universidade Estadual de Maringá. R.M. Peralta and A. Bracht are research grant recipients of Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnologia (CNPq)

Effects of in vitro digestion and in vitro colonic fermentation on stability and functional properties of yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis A. St. Hil.) beverages

Yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) is a plant that grows naturally in South America. From its leaves and thin stems different kinds of beverages are prepared (chimarrão, tererê and tea mate), all of them rich in bioactive substances. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of in vitro gastrointestinal digestion and colonic fermentation on the stability of the polyphenols and on the antioxidant, antimicrobial and antitumoral activities of the yerba mate beverages. The phenolic chromatographic profile revealed that both the in vitro digestion and the colonic fermentation caused a pronounced decrease in 3,5-O-dicaffeoylquinic acid and 5-O-caffeoylquinic acid in the preparations. However, 3-O-caffeoylquinic acid, 4-O-caffeoylquinic acid and salvianolic acid I were only barely affected in all preparations. Despite the decrease in the phytochemicals content, yerba mate beverages maintain their functional properties such as antioxidant, antibacterial and antitumoral activities.The authors thank the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, Proc. 3079/2015-8) and Fundação Araucária (Proc.24/2012) for funding this study. Authors V.G. Correa and G.A. Gonçalves thanks Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento do Pessoal do Ensino Superior (CAPES) for the financial support provided for their post-graduate studies in Universidade Estadual de Maringá. A. Bracht, and R.M. Peralta research grant recipients of CNPq. The authors are also thankful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) and FEDER under Program PT2020 for financial support to CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2013), L. Barros (SFRH/BPD/107855/2015) and M.I. Dias (SFRH/BD/84485/2012) grant. To POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006984 (LA LSRE-LCM), funded by ERDF, through POCI-COMPETE2020 and FCT.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

AIDS since 1984: No evidence for a new, viral epidemic – not even in Africa

Since the discoveries of a putative AIDS virus in 1984 and of millions of asymptomatic carriers in subsequent years, no general AIDS epidemic has occurred by 2011. In 2008, however, it has been proposed that between 2000 and 2005 the new AIDS virus, now called HIV, had killed 1.8 million South Africans at a steady rate of 300,000 per year and that anti-HIV drugs could have saved 330,000 of those. Here we investigate these claims in view of the paradoxes that HIV would cause a general epidemic in Africa but not in other continents, and a steady rather than a classical bell-shaped epidemic like all other new pathogenic viruses. Surprisingly, we found that South Africa attributed only about 10,000 deaths per year to HIV between 2000 and 2005 and that the South African population had increased by 3 million between 2000 and 2005 at a steady rate of 500,000 per year. This gain was part of a monotonic growth trajectory spanning from 29 million in 1980 to 49 million in 2008. During the same time Uganda increased from 12 to 31 million, and Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole doubled from 400 to 800 million, despite high prevalence HIV. We deduce from this demographic evidence that HIV is not a new killer virus. Based on a review of the known toxicities of antiretroviral drugs we like to draw the attention of scientists, who work in basic and clinical medical fields, including embryologists, to the need of rethinking the risk-and-benefit balance of antiretroviral drugs for pregnant women, newborn babies and all others who carry antibodies against HIV

Clinical significance of immune-system laboratory tests

Anatomists and many other medical specialists rely on clinical laboratories for critical information to assist in diagnosis, prognosis, and the evaluation of treatments. However, the clinical laboratories do not always accompany their numbers with sufficient information about the significance of certain results: how great the quantitative variation of a given parameter might be in healthy subjects, and how likely it might be that a given qualitative (“yes” or “no”) result is a false positive or false negative. This situation has been particularly troublesome in the case of HIV, because there is no “gold standard” HIV test and the typically quantitated measure, CD4, varies widely for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with HIV infection. For example, a person pronounced HIV-positive after having some vaccinations became HIV-negative again after a time, something that is not regarded as possible if HIV-positive denotes definitely active infection, as is commonly assumed. An important consequence of deficient information about HIV epidemiology is that students of anatomy may fear risking possible infection in dissection laboratories when the actual risk is negligible even in respect to anonymous cadavers in South Africa where the supposed incidence of HIV is particularly high. We have previously pointed to the need to improve HIV epidemiology and related public policy by recognizing and taking into account the weaknesses in HIV testing, which are the probable reason for at least some of the troubling conundrums and mutually contradictory data that seem inexplicable: conflicting estimates of HIV infections and of HIV-disease deaths from equally authoritative sources; apparently drastically different primary modes of transmission in different geographic regions; extreme racial disparities in HIV infection, with Asians and Asian Americans consistently less affected, by about one third, than white Americans, while black Americans are affected by as much as an order of magnitude more than white Americans. Testing uncertainties doubtless also contribute to the confusion as to whether certain conditions (e.g. lipodystrophy or nephropathy) should be described as HIV-associated or as AIDS-associated. In recent work we have found that the immune system, including CD4 counts, can be markedly enhanced by easily modified dietary supplementation that has none of the toxic side-effects of the antiretroviral drugs currently used in the attempt to elevate CD4 counts in HIV-positive people