Nutritive value and phytochemical composition of processed Solanum incanum (Bitter garden egg)

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In vitro study on inhibition of glycosylation of methanolic leaf extract of Hibiscus cannabinus

The inhibitory properties of Methanolic leaf extract of Hibiscus cannabinus (Malvaceae family) on glycosylation formation, was investigated in haemoglobin using Gallic acid as Standard. The periodic glycosylation of haemoglobin at varying concentration of glucose shows a decrease in haemoglobin concentration indicating the glycosylation of haemoglobin. While the subsequent administration of Hibiscus cannabinus Methanolic leaf extract inhibit haemoglobin glycosylation, where a concentration of 20 mg/ml of theextract gave a significant inhibition by yielding haemoglobin concentration of 1.877±0.40 ìg/ml for test extract as against 0.032±0.013 ìg/ml for the standard. This suggests that the plant extract inhibits the binding of glucose to hemoglobin, since at higher concentration of glucose the concentration was found to be high

In vitro Inhibitory Studies and Effect of Selected Plant Extracts and Cations on Elastase (EC 3.4.21.11) Activity produced by Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus

Elastase is a member of the serine protease enzyme family that hydrolytically degrades elastin, a connective tissue component leading to aging and wrinkling of the skin. In this report, we investigated the in-vitro inhibitory effects of some cations and n-hexane extract of Hibiscus cannabinus, Vernonia amygdalina, Murraya koenigii, and Telfairia occidentalis on the activity of Elastase isolated from Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus niger. Elastase was extracted, isolated and partially purified from Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus niger. The data obtained in this study demonstrated that the activity of elastase in Aspergillus flavus was higher compared to that of Aspergillus niger after salting out. The elastase inhibition activities of Hibiscus cannabinus, Vernonia amygdalina, Murraya koenigii, and Telfairia occidentalis reveal that the leaf extract from Murraya koenigii, in Aspergillus flavus had more significant inhibition was obtained compared to that of Aspergillus niger, with inhibitory effect from 40µg/ml. While that of Hibiscus cannabinus showed similar inhibition characteristics to Murraya koenigii. Both Hibiscus cannabinus and Vernonia amygdalina had an effect at 80µg/ml; all the extracts appeared to have more effects on the enzyme obtained from Aspergillus flavus than from the Aspergillus niger. The potential of exploring these plant extract as an anti-aging recipe was discussed. Keywords: Inhibitory studies, Elastase, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger, Hibiscus cannabinus, Vernonia amygdalina, Murraya koenigii, and Telfairia occidentali

Biochemical response of normal albino rats to the addition of aqueous leaves extract of Hibiscus cannabinus and Murraya koenigii in rats drinking water

Experiments were conducted to determine the biochemical effect of Hibiscus cannabinus and Murraya koenigii extracts on normal albino rats  using standard methods. Analyses carried out indicated that the aqueousleaf extract of H. cannabinus and M. koenigii exhibited significant  hypolipideamic activity in normal rats. Results of phytochemical studies showed that flavonoids and glycosides are the major chemical constituent of the leaf extract. Overall results indicate a significant (P<0.05) reduction of serum cholesterol, triglycerol at both concentration of 5 and 10 mg/Kg b.wt. No significant effect is seen in the hematological indices, serum glucose,  Aspartate transaminase (AST) and Alanine transaminase (ALT). The  significance of this study is thus discussed.Key words: Hibiscus cannabinus, Murraya koenigii, flavonoid, Hypolipidemi

Medicines in Pharmacy Students’ Residence and Self-medication Practices

This study was aimed at identifying the types of medicines in pharmacy students’ residence and to determine if a relationship exists between keeping medicines in students’ accommodation and self-medication practices. A cross-sectional survey of a random sample of 240 undergraduate pharmacy students of the University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria, was carried out. Participating students were given a self-administered questionnaire, and only 188 students returned their filled questionnaire. The data collected were entered and analyzed using SPSS 16, and the χ2-test was used to determine associations between the variables. The results revealed that 66.0% of respondents had medicines in their room. A total of 318 medicines items (2.56 items per student's room) of which 37.1% were leftover medicines were present in respondents’ rooms. Analgesics (34.3%) and antibiotics (25.2%) were the common classes of medicines present in respondents’ rooms. Respondents reported getting these medicines on prescription (25.8%) and self-medication (56.5%) or both (17.7%). Self-medication practice was common among respondents (53.2%); however, no significant relationship (P>0.05) existed between having medicine in students’ room and self-medication practices. Common reasons given by respondents for having medicines in their rooms were that they were leftover medicines and that they were keeping them for emergency use or for use in an event of a similar illness. Most respondents (72.2%) reported disposing of their unused medicines in a trash can/dust bin. This study demonstrated that the prevalence of medicine storage in students’ room and self-medication practice is high. Analgesics and antibiotics were the most common types of medicines present in students’ residence

Valorisation of sawdust through the combined microwave-assisted hydrothermal pre-treatment and fermentation using an oleaginous yeast

Oleaginous yeast, cultured on second-generation lignocellulosic resources, has the potential to be a key part of the future energy sector. However, the multiple unit operations necessary to produce concentrated hydrolysates, with a minimum of fermentation inhibitors, limit the applicability to date. In this study, a simple microwave-assisted hydrothermal pre-treatment step of oak or beech sawdust was deployed to produce an oligosaccharide-rich hydrolysate. This was then catabolised by the oleaginous yeast, Metschnikowia pulcherrima, avoiding the need for costly enzymatic or further chemical steps in the processing. Up to 85% of the sawdust’s hemicelluloses could be solubilised under these conditions, and 8 g/L DCW yeast with a 42% lipid content produced. While a number of studies have demonstrated that oleaginous yeasts possess high inhibitor tolerance, using this real lignocellulosic hydrolysate, we demonstrate that lipid production is actually very sensitive to inhibitor and carbon availability, and the optimal system is not the one that gives the highest hydrolysate or cell biomass. Indeed, the yeast was shown to detoxify the inhibitors in the process, but at high inhibitor loading, this leads to very poor lipid production, especially at high furfural levels. These findings clearly highlight the importance of considering multiple variables when real, complex lignocellulosic media are involved, tuning process conditions based on the desired fermentation outcomes.</p

Healthcare professionals' level of medication knowledge in Africa:A systematic review

OBJECTIVE: Understanding how much healthcare professionals (HCPs) know about medication can help to devise strategies to improve rational medication use. This study aimed to synthesis information on the level of medication knowledge of HCPs in Africa. METHOD: We performed a systematic literature study in Embase and PubMed. We included original studies quantifying HCPs' medication knowledge, published between 2012 and 2016. We extracted disease focus, country, number and type of HCPs included and all medication-related knowledge questions and scored the quality of papers. The outcome measure was the percentage HCPs who correctly answered medication knowledge questions. RESULTS: We identified 64 studies from 12 African countries, comprising 13,911 HCPs, mostly nurses/midwifes and physicians. We extracted 306 medication-related knowledge questions, and only 52% (SD 28) of HCPs correctly answered them. Knowledge questions were mainly about medication prescribed for communicable diseases (70%), followed by non-communicable diseases (11%), and family Planning/Gynecology (10%). Most papers concluded that there was a considerable medication knowledge gap among HCPs. CONCLUSION: We found a low level of medication knowledge across different disease areas, countries and HCPs. This underlines the continuous need to strengthen the undergraduate and postgraduate education in (clinical) pharmacology and therapeutics in Africa

Neuropharmacological evidence for an interaction between the GABA uptake inhibitor Cl-966 and anxiolytic benzodiazepines

[1-[2-[bis(trifluoromethyl)-phenyl]methoxy]ethyl]-1,2,5,6- tetrahydro-3-pyridine-carboxylic acid, HCl (CI-966, Parke-Davis) is a new specific inhibitor to GABA uptake to neurons that is severalfold more potent than for inhibition of glycine or glutamate uptake. CI-966 crosses the blood-brain barrier and when injected intravenously into rats (doses up to 10.5 \u3bcM/kg = 5.0 mg/kg) produces only marginal behavioral effects. CI-966 also produces a modest reversal of punished-suppressed drinking behavior in thirsty rats both in the conflict and phenylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced proconflict Vogel test. However an inactive dose of CI-966 (6.3 \u3bcM/kg i.v., 90 min prior to the test) significantly potentiated the anticonflict and anti-PTC-induced proconflict action of diazepam and alprazolam. The anticonflict/antiproconflict ED50 ratio for diazepam was shifted from 1.2 to 1.0 and that of alprazolam from 13.0 to 7.0 after pretreatment with CI-966. These results suggest that CI-966, while it may produce increasing GABAergic tone throughout the CNS, selectively enhances the action of GABA at GABA(A) receptor subtypes whose sensitivity is preferentially increased by administration of positive allosteric modulators. Therefore CI-966 may represent a very useful drug to study modifications of animal behavior in relation to the function of GABAergic transmission in specific brain areas