Vitamins & Minerals

Pokorski M (2013) Mangiferin - A Nutraceutical with Clinical Implications. Vitam Miner 3: e122.

Children and their mothers affected by the Chernobyl catastrophy suffer with toxic lipoperoxic stress coupled with hypovitaminoses A and E. The relation of these primary biochemical disturbances to notorious somatic consequences on mutagenic and teratogenic levels caused by chronic low-dose radiation of children from radiopolluted regions had been investigated. Rational approaches to prevent or to treat indicated pathologies were developed either. Vitamins A and E blood levels for newborns from radio polluted regions were near a third of normal ones. Simultaneous increasing of lipo-peroxidation for studied children had tendency to correlate with their body stigmation. Radiogenic indices of mutagenicity and teratogenicity showed dramatic increases along with fall of the essential antioxidants. The peroral poly vitamin therapy of women at the beginning of 1st trimester pregnancy prevented or corrected evaluated abnormalities for their newborns. Vitamin-protected children had normal ranges for studied indices. The combination of radiogenic biochemical deviations is supposed to be the primary molecular mechanisms for children restorable somatic hyper mutations and irreversible body stigmations but preventable by essential antioxidants via their mothers at early pregnancy.

Over the centuries medicinal plants have benefited mankind against different diseases. Advanced Glycation End-products (AGE’s) formation due to non-enzymatic glycation and oxidative stress has been demonstrated in the pathogenesis of diabetic complications and aging processes. In this study we investigated the antiglycation and antioxidation potential of different fraction Bunium bulbocastanum fruits. Our results indicated that the chloroform fraction of B. bulbocastanum fruits had more antiglycation ability with a Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC50) of 132.88 μg/ml as compared to the MIC50 of 189.92, 199.08, 202.50 and 261.41 μg/ml of aqueous, crude methanolic, ethyl acetate and n-hexane fractions, respectively. While the results of antioxidation assay showed that Ethyl acetate has more antioxidation potential than the standard (ascorbic acid). Ethyl acetate, aqueous, crude methanolic, n-hexane and chloroform fractions had 31.24, 26.07, 20.67, 15.51 and 5.72% antioxidation potential at 0.5 mg/ml respectively.

Mild-to-moderate zinc deficiency is common throughout the world. The biochemical changes associated with zinc deficiency have been extensively studied. However, the study of the regulation of microRNAs expression by zinc has just begun. MicroRNAs play a significant role in the regulation of gene function by binding to complementary regions of specific target mRNAs. MicroRNAs whose expression is altered in response to low zinc may play a role in adaptive responses to low zinc. Herein, the effect of low zinc intake on the expression of miR-34a in intestine, liver and thymus was analyzed in mice. In addition, the effect of low and excess zinc on the expression of miR-34a was analyzed in human hepatoma cells HepG2. Mice fed a low zinc diet exhibited low zinc content in tibia and increased expression of zinc transporter Slc39a4 in intestine. Moreover, the expression of miR-34a was increased in intestine and thymus of zinc deficient mice. The expression of miR-34a was also increased in HepG2 cells grown in low zinc medium. However, the expression of this microRNA was not affected by excess zinc. The up-regulation of miR-34a associated with zinc deficiency could be part of an adaptive response to cues generated in cells under low zinc conditions such as oxidative stress and inflammation.

There is growing interest in the role of micronutrients (essential trace elements and vitamins) in the optimization of health, and prevention and treatment of diseases. As multivitamin –multimineral supplementation (MVMM) is the most commonly reported supplement, it is important to study the health benefits associated with regular intake.

We investigated the use of a particular MVMM supplement, developed by the Pure North Foundation, on blood chemistry parameters and lipid profiles, along with the inflammation marker C - reactive protein, in 100 steel company workers over a one year period of supplementation.

According to our study, participants with lower levels of vitamins D, B2, and C before supplementation tended to show higher levels of inflammation. Vitamin D levels correlated with a variety of lipid profile parameters. Analysis of the data after one year of supplementation demonstrated that participants with blood vitamin D concentrations above 30 ng/ml showed decreases in triglycerides, cholesterol to HDL ratio, and improvement of HDL levels. In addition, higher vitamin C levels were associated with lower triglyceride and VLDL levels.

Blood concentrations of vitamin C, D, and E increased substantially as a result of supplementation, but coenzyme Q10 levels, lutein, lycopene, and vitamin A levels were not greatly affected.

Furthermore, looking into the distinction between smokers and non-smokers, our data indicate that improvements in antioxidant levels during MVMM supplementation are less dramatic in smokers. After one year supplementation, smokers had lower plasma antioxidant concentrations than nonsmokers. The greatest differences were found with lycopene, lutein, and vitamin A, while improvements in vitamin C, vitamin D and vitamin E were practically the same for both groups. Smokers had less improvement of the health score in comparison with non-smokers. For all participants, half year and one year of supplementation eliminated very low health scores, and increased the number of people with high scores.