New high-performance liquid chromatography-dad method for analytical determination of arbutin and hydroquinone in rat plasma

Natural substances present in herbal preparations should be carefully used because they can give toxic or therapeutic effects despite of their amount or the way of administration. The safety of products of vegetable origin must be assessed before commercialisation by monitoring the active ingredients and their metabolites. This study was therefore designed to identify and quantify arbutin and its metabolite hydroquinone, naturally present in Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (L.) Spreng plant in rat plasma, after an acute and subacute administration of aqueous arbutin solution in Wistar rats. For this purpose a reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with photodiode array detection was developed to assess the pharmacokinetic of arbutin and hydroquinone in plasma of female rats treated with aqueous arbutin solutions. The detection (arbutin: 0.0617 µg/ml and hydroquinone 0.0120 µg/ml) and quantification (arbutin: 0.2060 µg/ml and hydroquinone: 0.0400 µg/ml) limits were determined. At the arbutin concentration level of 10.7 µg/ml repeatability was 13.33% and its recovery 93.4±6.93%, while at the hydroquinone concentration level of 10.6 µg/ml repeatability was 11.66% and its recovery 92.9±7.75%. Furthermore the method was fully validated and the obtained data indicate that the new method provides good performances

Improving pulse crops as a source of protein, starch and micronutrients

Pulse crops have been known for a long time to have beneficial nutritional profiles for human diets but have been neglected in terms of cultivation, consumption and scientific research in many parts of the world. Broad dietary shifts will be required if anthropogenic climate change is to be mitigated in the future, and pulse crops should be an important component of this change by providing an environmentally sustainable source of protein, resistant starch and micronutrients. Further enhancement of the nutritional composition of pulse crops could benefit human health, helping to alleviate micronutrient deficiencies and reduce risk of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes. This paper reviews current knowledge regarding the nutritional content of pea (Pisum sativum L.) and faba bean (Vicia faba L.), two major UK pulse crops, and discusses the potential for their genetic improvement

Linking the ICF codes to clinical real-ufe assessments: The challenge of the transition from theory to practice

According to the latest WHO guidelines, the ICD-ICF joint use currently represents the most agreed method to portray a patient's Care Pathway during a hospitalization. On this note, ICS Maugeri carried out an internal project aiming to identify the ICF codes that better describe the rehabilitation pathways in its Italian Institutes. 2 main goals so far have been achieved: 1. To re-conceptualize the Care Pathways thought the lenses of the ICD-ICF frameworks; 2. To link, whenever possible and by means of the WHO-ICF linking rules, each pertinent ICF code to the most appropriate assessment method, harmonizing its outputs to the 0-4 ICF Likert scale. The current project represents a first attempt towards the creation of a standard functioning assessment methodology to be implemented in rehabilitation settings. Despite being referred to the Maugeri group only, the ICD-ICF procedure described could hopefully be extended to other settings, representing a support for health information technologies