Antidiabetic and antioxidant potentials of spent turmeric oleoresin, a by-product from curcumin production industry

Objective: To investigate the antidiabetic and antioxidant activity of spent turmeric oleoresin (STO). Methods: Antidiabetic activity of STO evaluated by α - amylase and α - glucosidase enzyme inhibition assays. The antioxidant capacity studied by DPPH. , ABTS., superoxide radical scavenging and metal chelating activity methods. Results: The STO showed good antidiabetic activity by inhibiting key enzymes linked to type 2 diabetes, viz α -glucosidase and α -amylase with an IC50values of 0.71 and 0.16毺 g/mL respectively. The IC50 values for DPPH. and ABTS. assay were 58.1 and 33 毺 g/mL respectively. STO effectively scavenged the superoxide free radical with an IC50 value of 61.5毺 g/mL and showed a moderate iron chelation property. Conclusions: The above study reveals that the spent turmeric oleoresin being wasted at present can be used as antioxidant and antidiabetic agent in food and neutraceutical products

Lack of association of Lysyl oxidase (LOX) gene polymorphisms with intracranial aneurysm in a south Indian population

Intracranial aneurysm (IA) accounts for 85 % of haemorrhagic stroke and is mainly caused due to weakening of arterial wall. Lysyl oxidase (LOX) is a cuproenzyme involved in cross linking structural proteins collagen and elastin, thus providing structural stability to artery. Using a case-control study design, we tested the hypothesis whether the variants in LOX gene flanking the two LD block, can increase risk of aSAH among South Indian patients, either independently, or by interacting with other risk factors of the disease. SNPs were genotyped by fluorescence-based competitive allele-specific PCR (KASPar) chemistry. We selected 200 radiologically confirmed aneurysmal cases and 235 ethnically and age and gender matched controls from the Dravidian Malayalam speaking population of South India. We observed marked interethnic differences in the genotype distribution of LOX variants when compared to Japanese and African populations. However, there was no significant association with any of the LOX variants with IA. This study also could not observe any significant role of LOX polymorphisms in influencing IA either directly or indirectly through its confounding factors such as hypertension and gender in South Indian population