Harnessing the power of plant compounds -
inside these gram-negative bacteria due to their double membrane. Once they get inside, they can then be taken by the efflux pumps again, to the outside. As sessile organisms, lacking the ability to move under their own power, plants need to have strong and resilient defence mechanisms.
The secondary metabolism of plants is very rich, with different families of molecules, structures and functional groups, which Dr Araya-Cloutier and her colleagues in the project are now trying to harness and exploit. If you grow a soya bean plant, it is normally meant to grow efficiently and healthily, thus secondary metabolism and diversity of phytochemicals is rather limited or narrow.
Here, we exploit the defence metabolism in plants which is activated upon exposure to stress. or abiotic agents in such a way that the plant reacts and creates a new set of secondary or defence metabolites, with researchers also aiming to relate the structure of the metabolites that are produced to the bioactivity, opening up the possibility of rational design.
Previous research has shown that these defence metabolites are more potent antimicrobials than the constitutive metabolites, now Dr Araya-Cloutier is looking to build on these earlier findings.
Researchers are stressing different plants, including some from the Fabaceae family such as soy beans, which produce prenylated phenolic compounds as a defence response and can act as phytoEPIs. model, gram-negative organism, frequently involved in antibiotic-resistance infections. A couple of candidate compounds have been identified and their effectiveness is being investigated, while there are also several other lines of research in the project.
This will open up further insights into how EPIs actually work. Through a collaboration with the physics group of Prof. Ruggerone in Italy molecular modelling tools, such as molecular dynamics simulations, will be used to model this binding and inhibition process.
The final aim in the project is to propose a couple of natural lead compounds for potential use as EPIs, which Dr Araya-Cloutier says could. A case in point, many cultures use herbs as medicine, for example, in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
That requires a medical practitioner's license. Focus on enjoying natural, whole foods, that provide a synergy of polyphenols and nutrients that promote health. This includes macro-nutrients proteins, carbohydrates and fats and all important fibre, to support a healthy gut microbiome. What does this mean on the plate?
By enjoying a diverse array of polyphenol-rich foods, herbs especially, we nourish our bodies and support our well-being. Let herbs become our allies in achieving a healthier, more vibrant and tastier life. Stay Healthy,. More than just taste, herbs can bring health and joy to our lives.
Stay tuned for our complete collection of articles, recipes and more This content is brought to you by The Whole Health Practice. Alastair Hunt NBC-HWC is the Founder and Chief Wellbeing Officer at The Whole Health Practice. Based in Singapore, The Whole Health Practice supports individuals and teams around the world to improve their health, performance and vitality.
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Close menu. Aerospring Systems. Commercial Farms. Log in. Close cart. Free Shipping for all system orders. What are Polyphenols? Alongside carotenoids and phytosterols, polyphenols are a large and diverse group of natural compounds found in plants that have powerful health-promoting effects.
H ow Do Herbs Promote Health? One of the key ways polyphenols benefit health is through their potent antioxidant properties. Polyphenols and their antioxidants, or their metabolites the precise mechanisms in vivo are unclear , play a crucial role in neutralising harmful free radicals in the body, molecules that can cause oxidative stress and damage cells.
Free radicals are both a result of our own internal energy creation through metabolism and are also created by a gamut of everyday stressors: cigarette smoke, stress, trauma, infection, heat injury, pesticides, air pollution and even excessive exercise.
H erbs and the Kitchen. Making polyphenol-rich foods a part of your daily diet is a simple and enjoyable way to support your health.
Common herbs, fresh and dried, are amongst the richest sources of polyphenols, they can be a cheap, convenient and fun way to improve long-term health and well-being. What do we mean by common herbs?
Those that are on supermarket shelves and our spice racks. Aerospring Indoor Table-top Garden Hydroponic System. Common herbs can be easy to cultivate if you can find the right space and the right conditions.
In Singapore, where space is tight, this can mean indoors. Many of the polyphenols in the Lamiaceae consist of phenolic acids, flavones, phenolic diterpenes and flavanones.
T erroir and Synergy. A Word on Supplements. Well-marketed supplements containing polyphenols may seem convenient but in many cases, the science is not clear if they have the same benefits as consuming whole foods herbs. Perhaps beneficial, perhaps not. Polyphenols as extractions or isolated compounds have different effects than their whole food origins.
What emerges from a lineage like that? Intergenerational herbal wisdom. A powerful, sage understanding of how to cultivate and use these botanicals in ways that impart the most of their health-giving compounds. Making it possible to harness their innate healing gifts and use them to create greater wellness in the world.
When it comes to sourcing the natural ingredients in our products, we look to regions of the world best known for producing the highest-quality varieties.
Looking to places where the plant is indigenously grown, or otherwise central to the culture, typically translates to organic farming practices steeped in intergenerational wisdom. Meaning: a deep reverence for both the land and the restorative power of the botanicals themselves.
A power we further distill with our SuperPure® extraction methods. This sourcing intentionality was especially true when it came to the ingredients in Radiant Mood®. For Radiant Mood, finding the best ingredients nature had to offer was as always a worldwide pursuit.
First stop…. Roses from this province are of some of the highest quality in the world. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, rose petals, especially the Rosa rugosa buds found in Radiant Mood, are thought to help move energy through a heart that is emotionally or spiritually closed-off.
Aka, act as a natural nervine. Our organic rose blooms are grown in a farm cooperative that optimizes both water efficiency and soil diversity in their farming practices.
And with a water-only extraction process, our extract is rich in bioactive compounds. Gardenia is native to east China, which is why we source the gardenia in our gardenia fruit extract from an organic green-house farm in Luohe.
Their organic growing practices help maintain thriving nutrient density in the soil and in the gardenia fruit itself. Our Albizia flower extract is made with wildcrafted petals. Albizia flowers have been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for many centuries.
Albizia trees grow wild in many parts of China, but the trees in certain areas of the Hubei province are known to have higher concentrations of Triterpenoid Saponins, a primary active ingredient of the plant. Our Albizia bark extract is wildcrafted from Albizia forests that need regular thinning due to overgrowth.
Due to this mindful harvesting cycle, the forest then has room for regeneration from natural seed spread.
A reverence for nature Liver health and weight management central to many Harnesing around poant Weight gain progress. And for good reason, too! Humans have Harneasing profound, healing relationship with ;ower, specifically plants. Many of the medicinal plants utilized in healing traditions like Traditional Chinese Medicine are central to the social and agricultural ecosystems of their native regions — and have been that way for many, many years. timestamp, people! What emerges from a lineage like that? Intergenerational herbal wisdom.Video
Harnessing the Power of Natural Volatile Compounds in Grapevines that Thwart Sharpshooters It makes sense to control Weight gain progress medicinal or Harnessing the power of plant compounds tue plant by concentrating the compounds that cause compoynds action. By learning more about the properties of plants and isolating Weight gain progress compounds, we have Nitric oxide for athletes great progress in terms of accuracy, repeatability and power of action. However, this approach does not make allowance for the molecular complexity of plants. Some of their pharmacological and medicinal properties are not produced by just one or two substances, but several hundred compounds which act in synergy to produce the effects that the plant is traditionally used for. There are two types of essential ingredient which contribute to the properties of medicinal plants:.Harnessing the power of plant compounds -
This complex combination of compounds can produce different medicinal properties than those obtained by selectively extracting only certain parts of the plant. Generally, none of the molecules taken separately can reproduce the effects of the original plant.
Turmeric also contains polyphenols, including curcumin, which, once extracted and combined with other ingredients to improve its bioavailability, has powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
Sometimes, the totum has to be used. This is the case for adaptogenic plants rhodiola, ginseng, Siberian ginseng or milk vetch whose multiple properties depend on a complex blend of molecules; or hawthorn, whose pharmacological properties cannot be obtained from one particular fraction on its own.
The plant extracts used for phytotherapy can be obtained from dried or fresh plants or parts of a plant. The drying process can sometimes damage the most fragile ingredients, which makes them less effective. At PiLeJe, we have chosen to use fresh plants to make our phytotherapy products.
For thousands of years, plant-derived remedies have been used in traditional medicine throughout the world, and plant-derived compounds would seem to have a place in modern pharmacology and the treatment of neurodegenerative disease. Biotic and abiotic factors are what make up an ecosystem.
Biotic factors are living things within an ecosystem such as plants, animals and bacteria. Abiotic factors are non-living components such as water, soil and atmosphere.
Flavonoids are secondary metabolites found in vegetables, fruits and some drinks such as tea and wine and are said to promote a wide range of health promoting benefits. Flavonoids are split into six sub-classes, each with its own structure, which allow it to act as an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticarcinogenic agent because these variants are able to modulate gene expression — the process by which instructions in our DNA are converted into a functional product, such as protein — and related enzymes and pathways.
In the past few years, studies have pointed to flavonoids as important biomolecules in potential new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. They offer protection against oxidative stress, nerve cell death caused by the toxic build-up of proteins, the over-production of glutamate and microglial activation.
Although there have only been a few studies using animal models, so there is no evidence of effectiveness in people with MND, flavonoid use has produced some promising results.
The antioxidant properties of a particular flavonoid derived from drinks like green and black tea increased lifespan, preserved nerve cells, reduced microglial activation and decreased oxidative stress. Compounds from other sub-classes of flavonoids have been found to inhibit the toxic accumulation of SOD1 protein, and it was shown that this was not related to the antioxidant properties of flavonoids as the antioxidant control failed.
Again, this has been seen in animal models of MND only, and the flavonoid compounds used were given in concentrated formulations, far higher than would be found in the consumption of foods and drinks containing flavonoids.
This is true for all of the compounds discussed in this blog. These multiple molecular mechanisms seem to indicate that flavonoids offer neuroprotection in animal models of MND and that the effect of the flavonoid can be linked to its structure, meaning different flavonoids can have different effects.
More studies in animals are needed before testing can begin in people, especially to understand the effect of specific flavonoids and the correct dosage. The most commonly known stilbene compound is resveratrol, found in the diet in grapes, red wine and peanuts.
Resveratrol is thought to act as an antioxidant. Resveratrol has quite a simple chemical structure that allows it to interact with a number of receptors and other targets, and different pathways connected to cell survival like SIRT SIRT-1 is involved in cell cycle regulation, DNA repair, programmed cell death apoptosis and inflammation.
Studies using cell models of MND have found that resveratrol reduced neurodegeneration and protected motor neurons from stress through SIRT-1 activation. Studies in SOD1 mouse and rat models of MND had similar results concerning activation of SIRT-1 and reduction in MND severity.
In the mouse model, resveratrol injections extended survival, possibly by inhibiting motor neuron loss. In the rat model, resveratrol given orally showed that treated rats had increased levels of SIRT-1 in their motor neurons, which delayed disease onset and mobility issues, increased motor neuron function, reduced spinal motor neuron degeneration and reduced microglial activation.
Other animal studies have also shown resveratrol to be activated by other mechanisms, leading to protection against glutamate excitotoxicity and the toxic build-up of the SOD1 protein. A LS Untangled systematically reviews alternative and off label treatments to try and help people living with MND to make more informed decisions about them.
They have carried out a r eview of resveratrol which concluded that the compound may confer benefits in animal models of SOD1 MND. At the point of publication , no trials had been carried out in people with MND, but trials in other populations reported problems such as weight loss and kidney damage and therefore ALS Untangled did not recommend resveratrol as a treatment for MND at that time.
The estimated completion date that is, the date the researchers think the last participant will receive the final dose is June It will be several months before any results are published. RELATED POST Blog 23 October Mandy Spencer ALS Untangled — untangling the mysteries of alternative and off-label treatments.
Curcumin is an orange-yellow powder, commonly known as turmeric. The herb has long been used in traditional medicine for a diverse range of conditions. Commercially available curcumin is a mixture of three curcuminoids: curcumin; demethoxycurcumin DMC ; and bisdemethoxycurcumin BDMC.
Curcuminoids have been extensively studied for their anti-inflammatory, antimutagenic and antioxidant effects, and some of these studies have shown that curcumin could also be important in the prevention of neurodegeneration through the regulation of gene expression and mitochondrial protection.
In models of MND a derivative of curcumin, known as Compound C, successfully protected motor neurons from toxic build-up of TDP, which can lead to cell death, and reduced oxidative stress. DMC has been shown to increase mitochondrial stability.
In a clinical trial , curcumin was associated with better ALSFRS-R scores and with improved cellular energy production.
In ALS Untangled carried out a review of the evidence for curcumin as a potential therapy for MND. Based on their findings, Dr Richard Bedlack founder of ALS Untangled led a small clinical trial of a water-soluble form of curcumin called Theracurmin in 50 people with MND, who took it for six months.
This showed no effect on disease progression. Phenolic acids are easily absorbed through the digestive tract and are beneficial to human health due to their potential antioxidant properties and their ability to promote anti-inflammation.
In the diet they can be found in wholegrains, cocoa, fruits, nuts, and coffee and beer. They contribute greatly to the taste, flavour and odour of plants. In , Shimojo and colleagues used an animal model of MND to test an extract of rosemary — rosmarin — and two of its main phenolic acids: rosmarinic acid RA and carnosic acid CA.
As sessile organisms, lacking the ability to move under their own power, plants need to have strong and resilient defence mechanisms. The secondary metabolism of plants is very rich, with different families of molecules, structures and functional groups, which Dr Araya-Cloutier and her colleagues in the project are now trying to harness and exploit.
If you grow a soya bean plant, it is normally meant to grow efficiently and healthily, thus secondary metabolism and diversity of phytochemicals is rather limited or narrow.
Here, we exploit the defence metabolism in plants which is activated upon exposure to stress. or abiotic agents in such a way that the plant reacts and creates a new set of secondary or defence metabolites, with researchers also aiming to relate the structure of the metabolites that are produced to the bioactivity, opening up the possibility of rational design.
Previous research has shown that these defence metabolites are more potent antimicrobials than the constitutive metabolites, now Dr Araya-Cloutier is looking to build on these earlier findings.
Researchers are stressing different plants, including some from the Fabaceae family such as soy beans, which produce prenylated phenolic compounds as a defence response and can act as phytoEPIs. model, gram-negative organism, frequently involved in antibiotic-resistance infections.
A couple of candidate compounds have been identified and their effectiveness is being investigated, while there are also several other lines of research in the project. This will open up further insights into how EPIs actually work.
Through a collaboration with the physics group of Prof. Ruggerone in Italy molecular modelling tools, such as molecular dynamics simulations, will be used to model this binding and inhibition process.
The final aim in the project is to propose a couple of natural lead compounds for potential use as EPIs, which Dr Araya-Cloutier says could. We know that plants have defended themselves for millions of years, and they are able to trick these efflux pumps into not working properly.
Inducing defence metabolites in plants These plants are placed under stress at different time points over a period of around 10 days, and differences have been observed in terms of the amount and composition of the metabolites that are produced.
Wolfgang CompoudsCharlotte Miller; Weight gain progress Harnessingg Harnessing the power of plant compounds — harnessing the power of plants to help combat climate compounrs. Biochem Lond 30 Harbessing ; 44 3 : 13— As we Antioxidant-rich green tea searching for the technologies that will halt global warming, let us take a moment to think about plants. A key contributor to our climate crisis is the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Plants have been capturing carbon dioxide for billions of years, making them the most tried and tested carbon capture machinery on the planet. Plants fix carbon dioxide as part of photosynthesis.
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