Inhibitory activity of a standardized elderberry liquid extract against clinically-relevant human respiratory bacterial pathogens and influenza A and B viruses

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Black elderberries (<it>Sambucus nigra </it>L.) are well known as supportive agents against common cold and influenza. It is further known that bacterial super-infection during an influenza virus (IV) infection can lead to severe pneumonia. We have analyzed a standardized elderberry extract (Rubini, BerryPharma AG) for its antimicrobial and antiviral activity using the microtitre broth micro-dilution assay against three Gram-positive bacteria and one Gram-negative bacteria responsible for infections of the upper respiratory tract, as well as cell culture experiments for two different strains of influenza virus.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The antimicrobial activity of the elderberry extract was determined by bacterial growth experiments in liquid cultures using the extract at concentrations of 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%. The inhibitory effects were determined by plating the bacteria on agar plates. In addition, the inhibitory potential of the extract on the propagation of human pathogenic H5N1-type influenza A virus isolated from a patient and an influenza B virus strain was investigated using MTT and focus assays.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>For the first time, it was shown that a standardized elderberry liquid extract possesses antimicrobial activity against both Gram-positive bacteria of <it>Streptococcus pyogenes </it>and group C and G <it>Streptococci</it>, and the Gram-negative bacterium <it>Branhamella catarrhalis </it>in liquid cultures. The liquid extract also displays an inhibitory effect on the propagation of human pathogenic influenza viruses.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Rubini elderberry liquid extract is active against human pathogenic bacteria as well as influenza viruses. The activities shown suggest that additional and alternative approaches to combat infections might be provided by this natural product.</p

Tracking antioxidant properties and color changes in low-sugar bilberry jam as effect of processing, storage and pectin concentration

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recently, an increased interest in the identification of valuable possibilities for preserving the antioxidant properties of products obtained by thermal processing of fruits rich in bioactive compounds can be noticed. In this regard, an extensive analysis is necessary in terms of thermal processed products behavior in relation to various factors. The purpose of the present study was to assess the effect which processing and storage at 20°C has on the antioxidant properties and color quality of low-sugar bilberry jam with different low-methoxyl pectin (LMP) concentrations.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>For all measured parameters, it should be noted that thermal processing induced significant alterations reported to the values registered for fresh fruit. Most important losses due to thermal processing were recorded for total monomeric anthocyanins (TMA) (81-84%), followed by L-ascorbic acid (L-AsAc) content (53-58%), total phenolics (TP) content (42-51%) and FRAP (ferric reducing antioxidant power) values (36-47%). Moreover, depreciation of the investigated compounds occurred during storage at 20°C. Jam storage for 7 months resulted in severe losses in TMA content in the range 58-72% from the value recorded one day after processing. This coincided with marked increases in polymeric color percent of these products after 7 months of storage. Also, bilberry jam storage for 7 months resulted in a decrease in L-AsAc content of 40-53% from the value recorded one day after processing, 41-57% in TP content and 33-46% from the value recorded one day after processing for FRAP values. By decreasing of LMP concentration in the jam recipe from 1 to 0.3% there has been an increase in losses of investigated compounds.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Overall, the results indicated that bilberry jams can also represent a good source of antioxidant compounds, although compared to the fruit, important losses seem to occur. Practical application of this work is that this kind of information will be very useful in optimizing the jam processing technology and storage conditions, in order to improve the quality of these products.</p

Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference

Architecting dietary intake monitoring as a service combining NLP and IoT

Currently there exist many tools that support monitoring and encouragement of healthy nutrition habits in the context of wellness promotion. In this domain, interfaces based on natural language provide more flexibility for nutritional self-reporting than traditional form-based applications, allowing the users to provide richer and spontaneous descriptions. Nonetheless, in certain circumstances, natural language records may miss some important aspects, such as the quantity of food eaten, which results in incomplete recordings. In the Internet-of-Things (IoT) paradigm, smart home appliances can support and complement the recording process so as to make it more accurate. However, in order to build systems that support the semantic analysis of nutritional self-reports, it is necessary to integrate multiple inter-related components, possibly within complex e-health platforms. For this reason, these components should be designed and encapsulated avoiding monolithic approaches that derive in rigidity and dependency of particular technologies. Currently, there are no models or architectures that serve as a reference for developers towards this objective. In this paper, we present a service-based architecture that helps to contrast and complement the descriptions of food intakes by means of connected smart home devices, coordinating all the stages during the process of recognizing food records provided in natural language. Additionally, we aim to identify and design the essential services that are required to automate the recording and subsequent processing of natural language descriptions of nutritional intakes in association with smart home devices. The functionalities provided by each of these services are ready to work in isolation, just out of the box, or in downstream pipeline processes, bypassing the inconveniences of monolithic architectures.DEP2015-70980-R of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 823907COST Action IC1303 AAPEL

Supercritical Fluid Extraction and Chromatography of Lipids in Bilberry.

A supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) method has been developed for the extraction of lipids in bilberry. Experimental design was used to optimize pressure, temperature and extraction time using CO2 as solvent. Best SFE condition for total lipids was 450 bar, 60 °C and 45 min. The SFE method was compared to conventional Bligh & Dyer (B&D) extraction. The amount of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) was found to be 4.84 ± 0.06 mg and 4.564 ± 0.003 mg per g of the freeze-dried bilberry sample for the developed SFE and B&D methods, respectively, while the amount of total lipids was found to be 54.40 ± 6.06 mg and 65.70 ± 0.67 mg per g of sample for SFE and B&D, respectively. This discrepancy between FAME and total lipids could be explained by the presence of wax esters, sterol esters, carotenoids and phospholipids, as determined by supercritical fluid chromatography