Fructose supplementation produced cardinal features of Syndrome-X including significant elevations in seum cholesterol, triglyceride, glucose and insulin and also in body weight. While treatment with methanolic extract of dried rhizomes of Zingiber officinale produced a significant reduction in fructose induced elevation in lipid levels, bodyweight, hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia, treatment...

In this article, the effect of Nasturtium officinale (watercress, belonging to Brassicaceae) extracts on the blood glucose level was evaluated in diabetic rats. After inducing diabetes via streptozotocin injection, the animals were orally received various concentrations of N. officinale extracts (ethyl acetate, methanol and aqueous) for short (one week) and long (two months) periods. Only 800 a...

We have studied the features of heavy metal accumulation in and have carried out a hygienic assessment of medicinal plants Taraxacum officinale Web. growing in various areas of the microrelief of the Kedrovskii coal mine rock dump. We have revealed a higher variability in the content of Cr, Mn, Zn and Fe mobile forms in the waste embryonic soils and have found that Cu and Zn content was lower t...

In traditional medicine, several medicinal plants or their extracts have been used to treat diabetes. Zingiber officinale Roscoe, known commonly as ginger, is consumed worldwide in cookeries as a spice and flavouring agent. It has been used as the spice and medicine for thousands of years. The present study was undertaken to investigate the potential protective effect of Zingiber officinale Ros...

The aim of study was to determine the phytoextraction of rare earth elements (REEs) to roots, stems and leaves of five herbaceous plant species (Achillea millefolium L., Artemisia vulgaris L., Papaver rhoeas L., Taraxacum officinale AND Tripleurospermum inodorum), growing in four areas located in close proximity to a road with varied traffic intensity. Additionally, the relationship between roa...

Shikonin, isolated from the plant Lithospermum erythrorhizon Sieb. Et Zucc, has been reported to induce apoptosis in several tumor cells. However, such effect of shikonin on human breast cancer cells has not been reported. Thus, in the present study, whether shikonin could induce MCF-7 human breast cancer cell apoptosis was investigated. The results showed that shikonin (2.5-80 microM) induced ...

BACKGROUND Urtica dioica, Taraxacum officinale, Calea integrifolia and Caesalpinia pulcherrima are widely used all over the world for treatment of different illnesses. In Mexico, these plants are traditionally used to alleviate or counteract rheumatism and inflammatory muscle diseases. In the present study we evaluated the activity of aqueous and methanolic extracts of these four plants, on the...

Dendrobiumofficinale (Orchidaceae) is one of the world's most endangered plants with great medicinal value. In nature, D. officinale seeds must establish symbiotic relationships with fungi to germinate. However, the molecular events involved in the interaction between fungus and plant during this process are poorly understood. To isolate the genes involved in symbiotic germination, a suppressio...

Inspite of the large body of genomic data obtained from the transcriptome of Zingiber officinale, very few studies have focused on the identification and characterization of miRNAs in gingerol biosynthesis. Zingiber officinale transcriptome was analyzed using EST dataset (38169 total) deposited in public domains. In this paper computational functional annotation of the available ESTs and identi...

Natural, products were studied to combat reproductive alterations of lead. The current work aimed to disclose the efficacy of Chlorella vulgaris and Zingiber officinale to alleviate lead acetate induced toxicity. Sixty adult male Wistar rats were distributed into four groups. Group 1 was considered control, group 2 received 200 mg/l PbAc water, group 3 received 50 mg/kg/rat of C. vulgaris extra...