Comparative Estimation of Arginine Content in Peanuts: An Analytical Study

Introduction: Arginine is an amino acid that has several positive effects on human health and peanut seeds are the richest source of it. Peanuts are the store houses loaded with proteins, fatty acids, vitamins, fiber and other phytochemicals. It has been shown that the intake of arginine at the concentration of 3-6 g/day has been found to improve the cardiovascular system, reduce intestinal permeability and activate the immune system that aids in early recovery of tuberculosis patients. Aim: To evaluate the variation of arginine content in raw, boiled, soaked, soaked and boiled type of peeled and unpeeled peanuts Materials and Methods: The analytical study on various groups of peanuts (raw, boiled, soaked, soaked and boiled peanuts of both peeled and unpeeled varieties) was conducted at Gayatri Vidya Parishad Institute of Health Care and Medical Technology at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India, in December 2019. The arginine content was estimated in peanut seeds using the Sakaguchi method by Spectrophotometry at wavelength of 520 nm. Descriptive statistics were done for all 12 groups and were represented with mean, standard deviation and standard error. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Post-hoc Tukey’s were applied to find statistical significance. The p-value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25.0 was used for analysis. Results: Concentration of arginine was recorded for each type in triplicate considering the mean. The raw soaked peeled peanuts had the lowest concentration of arginine (31.82 μg/g) and the soaked boiled for 15 minutes, unpeeled peanuts had the highest amount of arginine (1438.18 μg/g). Significant difference was found among the twelve groups by using ANOVA test p<0.001. Soaked and boiled 15 min peeled peanuts, soaked unpeeled, soaked and boiled 15 min unpeeled and soaked and boiled 30 min unpeeled were significantly different when compared to the remaining groups using Post hoc Tukey’s test p<0.05. Conclusion: Soaked, boiled and unpeeled peanuts were the best types with the highest amounts of arginine which could be chosen as adjuvant nutritional therapeutic supplement to aid in the recovery of certain diseases

Antibacterial activity of cinnamon extract against gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial pathogens isolated from patient samples

Background: Medicinal plants have played crucial roles in the traditional health care system since the origin of mankind. Among them, cinnamon is used not only as a spice in food but also as a substance with many health-beneficial effects. The aim of the present study was to identify the antibacterial activity of cinnamon bark extract against bacterial isolates from patient pus samples that might help treat infections. Methods: The antibacterial potential of cinnamon bark extract in both ethanol and methanol against 6 bacterial isolates obtained from pus samples received in the Microbiology Laboratory was identified by agar well diffusion, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) using standard techniques. Results: By agar well diffusion, the highest inhibitory activity of ethanol and methanol extracts of cinnamon was shown by Staphylococcus aureus, followed by coagulase-negative Staphylococci. The lowest inhibitory effect was shown by Proteus mirabilis. The ethanol extract of cinnamon MIC and MBC ranged from 6.25 mg/mL to 12.5 mg/mL and 12.5 mg/mL to 50 mg/mL. The methanol extract of cinnamon MIC showed a value of 12.5 mg/mL, and the methanol extract of MBC ranged from 12.5 mg/mL to 50 mg/mL against all bacterial isolates of the present study. Conclusion: Staphylococcus aureus is sensitive to the alcoholic extract of cinnamon bark, but its effect is less than that of the selected antibiotic