• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.83-88
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• 2022

Objectives : Jakyakgamcho-tang (JGT) has been traditionally used to treat muscular convulsion and pain in South Korea. According to recent studies, JGT has been reported to have anti-depression, anti-inflammation, anti-oxidative, anti-diabetics, anti-spasm and analgesic effects, but studies on its anti-neuroinflammatory and neuroprotective effect have not been deeply conducted. Thus, we investigated the anti-neuroinflammatory activity of JGT on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated mouse microglia cells. Methods : To investigate the anti-neuroinflammatory effects of JGT on BV2 microglial cells, we examined the production of nitric oxide (NO) using griess assay, and mRNA expressions of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-1𝛽, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-𝛼 using real time RT-PCR. Furthermore, to determine the regulating mechanisms of JGT, we investigated the heme oxygenase (HO)-1 by real time RT-PCR. Results : Pre-treatment of JGT effectively decreased NO production in LPS-stimulated BV2 cells at concentrations without cytotoxicity. Additionally, JGT significantly suppressed the production of IL-1𝛽, IL-6, and TNF-𝛼 in LPS-stimulated BV2 cells. Furthermore, JGT activated the HO-1 expression, which is one of the immunomodulatory signaling molecules. And the abolishment of HO-1 by tin protoporphyrin IX (SnPP, the HO-1 inhibitor) reversed the anti- inflammatory activity of JGT in LPS-stimulated BV2 cells. Conclusions : Our results suggest that the JGT has anti-neuroinflammatory effect through the activation of HO-1 in LPS-stimulated BV2 cells. Thereby, JGT could expected to be used for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative disease related to neuroinflammation.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.797-805
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• 2008

The present study was investigated on type 2 diabetics' actual status of anti-diabetic functional food intake by patients who came to oriental medicine clinics in Daejeon. The male was 37.3% and female was 62.7% of the subjects. The onset of the disease was most common in the age of 50's. Also 40% of the subjects have been suffering for more than 5 years. 35.7% of men, 53.2% for women had family history. Also 61.5% of the patients chose to carry out both diabetic therapy and exercise at the same time. 69.3% of the subjects have had experiences in anti-diabetic functional foods. Anti-diabetic functional foods used to surveyed people were bean, ginseng, and ginseng steamed red of which efficacies were already well known. Besides these foods, other foods such as loach, crucian carp were also used as anti-diabetic foods, but their benefits as anti-diabetic functional foods are not yet fully investigated. Subjects first knew about the therapy because friends or relatives recommended to them and most of them have used for 6 months to 1 year. However, 78.9% of subjects answered 'not so effective' in a question about satisfaction of anti-diabetic functional food. Although many of the patients have tried taking functional foods, they only use them for short period of time and they don't show prominent effect. Therefore these results suggest that in order to use scientifically studied functional foods, education about anti-diabetic functional foods should taken.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.295-300
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• 2008

Spirulina is a microscopic and filamentous cyanobacterium that contains essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidative components. The purpose of this study was to examine effects of spirulina intervention in Korean patients with type 2 diabetes. The subjects were 37 type 2 diabetic patients who visited a diabetic clinic in Seoul and randomly assigned into spirulina (8 g/day) or control group. During the intervention period of 12 weeks, subjects were asked to keep usual diet and prohibited to take any functional foods or dietary supplements. Spirulina supplementation for 12 weeks did not affect anthropometric parameters, however, lowered plasma triglycerides level significantly (p<0.05). Spirulina supplementation also resulted in a significant reduction in plasma malondialdehyde level (p<0.05) and an increase in plasma adiponectin level (p<0.1). The lipid lowering effect of spirulina supplementation was different according to serum lipid levels of the subjects before entering the intervention. The subjects with higher initial triglyceride level showed higher reduction in plasma triglyceride and blood pressure. The subjects with higher initial total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol level showed higher reduction in plasma concentrations of total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, IL-6, and blood pressure. It seems that spirulina supplementation is more effective in subjects with dyslipidemia. This study provides the evidence for beneficial effects of spirulina supplementation on blood lipid profiles, inflammatory variables, and antioxidant capacity in Korean patients with type 2 diabetes. The results suggest that spirulina is a promising agent as a functional food for diabetes management.

• Advances in Traditional Medicine
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.39-48
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• 2009

We have evaluated the effect of long term treatment of Enicostemma littorale (E. littorale) in type 2 diabetic patients taking pills of aqueous extract of E. littorale regularly as a complimentary medicine for at least 9 months. The effects of E. littorale on glycemic control, lipid profile, cardiac function and DNA damage in these patients were compared with those who had not been regular in taking E. littorale but regular in taking other conventional anti-diabetics. Our data suggest that, E. littorale can maintain normal blood glucose, serum insulin, serum triglycerides levels of type 2 diabetic patients if taken regularly. E. littorale also improves insulin sensitivity, and normalize disturbed lipogram and elevated creatinine levels, thereby produces beneficial effect in preventing cardiovascular complications and may preserve the kidney function. The finding that E. littorale also prevents DNA damage suggest a long term effect in diabetic patients. E. littorale thus can be considered as safe supplementary therapy for a long term and effective management of type 2 diabetic patients.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.705-708
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• 2007

The objective of the study was to observe the anti-diabetic effect of Solani nigri Herba(SH). The following experimental results were derived from the measurement of the levels of glucose, GOT and GPT in the serum and weight from a group of experimental rats by way of the injection of streptozotocin as well as the oral administration of Solani nigri Herba water extracts. The glucose level in the serum significantly decreased in the Solani nigri Herba-dosed group(SH2,12.6 mg/100 g rat weight) on the 10th day. The GOT level of SHI(4.2 mg/100 g Solani nigri Herba) and SH2 in the serum slightly decreased, but no significance to compare with control group. The GPT level of SH1 and SH2 in the serum slightly decreased, but no significance to compare with control group. The weight of rat of SH1 and SH2 in the serum slightly increased, but no significance to compare with control group. In conclusion, Solani nigri Herba appeared to have significance inhibitory effects on the rise of blood sugar level in the experimentally induced diabetics.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.238-248
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• 1994

The hypoglycemic and metabolic effects of Commelina communis L. extract were investigated in alloxan induced diabetic rats. The increased blood glucose level in the diabetic rats was significantly reduced and the loss of body weight was recovered with the treatment of the plant protein fractions($30{\sim}70%$ ammonium sulfate precipitates). Administration of the plant protein fractions elicited the significant increase of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6-P DH) activity and liver weight which were decreased in the diabetic rat liver. G-6-P DH was partially purified from extract- or insulin-treated diabetics, diabetic control, and normal rat liver and studied for the biochemical properties. The $K_m$ value(9.002 mM) of diabetic rat liver enzyme was greatly higher than that (0.033 mM) of normal enzyme indicating the affinity of enzyme for the substrate was significantly reduced in the diabetic rat liver. This reduced affinity of enzyme for the substrate in the diabetic rat was recovered in the extract- or insulin-treated rat liver enzyme having 0.164 or 0.208 mM of their $K_m$ values, respectively. Although there was no significant difference in the optimum pH(6.0) and optimum temperature($37^{\circ}C$) of enzyme among the experimental groups, the dependence of their activities on pH appeared to be slightly resistant in the extract- or insulin-treated group compared to the diabetic group. In order to investigate the antigenicity of rat liver enzyme among experimental groups, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was carried out by using anti-G-6-P DH anti-serum. Absorbance(0.102) shown in the normal rat liver was reduced even below zero in the alloxan-diabetic rat liver, but increased again in the extract- or insulin-treated rat liver(0.096 or 0.118, respectively). The result of this study suggested that G-6-P DH may be used as a marker enzyme to diagnose and to indicate the progress of the diabetics, and the hypoglycemic effect of the extracts of Commelina communis L. was certainly associated with action or mode of G-6-P DH on the rat liver.

• The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.39-57
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• 1999

Essential hypertension is a typical chronic disease requiring adequate and continuous management. And many studies supported that self-care was the essential factor to promote the wellbeing. The purpose of this study is to identify and understand the behavior patterns of self-care in hypertensives. As a research method, 35 Q-statements were collected through Individual interviews and review of the related literatures. 21 subjects were interviewed and the data were analyzed by the PC QUANL program with principal component analysis. There were 6 different self-care types classified as follows 1) Type 1 was the self-oriented control type, monitoring the blood pressure and taking the low salt diet. But they didn't take the anti -hypertensive drug and visit the health agency regularly. 2) Type 2 was the stress-control type. Their main activities were meditation to relieve the stress and communication with family. 3) Type 3 was called daily-life control type. This type tried to make their mind comfort and think positively. They also preferred walking and exercise regularly. 4) Type 4 was the medical-oriented control type, taking the anti-hypertensive drug, visiting the medical personnel and following the medical regimens. 5) Type 5 was the medication-oriented type. They only took the anti -hypertensive drug regularly and didn't any other self-care like as monitoring the blood pressure, taking the low salt diet and exercise. 6) Type 6 was called non-medication control type. This type had no medication, but tried to visit the health agency and health personnel. From the above results, it can be concluded that the self-care types were very various and self-care education have to provide individually according to the characteristics of self-care type. Another repeated study can be recommended to improve the nursing intervention the self-care behavior in chronic patient like as diabetics or rheumatoid arthritis.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.58 no.1
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• pp.51-54
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• 2015

Flavonoids from Morus alba fruits were evaluated for recovery effect on the damage of alloxan-induced pancreatic islet in zebrafish. Alloxan treatment on the zebrafish embryo surely decreased the pancreatic islet size (p <0.001). Rutin, isoquercetin, and quercetin very significantly recovered the size (p <0.001) and the fluorescence intensity of pancreatic islet.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.133-142
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• 2018

Patients with type II diabetes mellitus are more susceptible to colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence than non-diabetics. The anti-diabetic drug metformin is most commonly prescribed for the treatment of this disease and has recently shown antitumor effect in preclinical studies. The aberrant mutational activation in the components of RAS/RAF/MEK/ERK and PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway is very frequently observed in CRC. We previously reported that metformin inhibits the phosphorylation of ERK and BEZ235, a dual inhibitor of PI3K and mTOR, has anti-tumor activity against HCT15 CRC cells harboring mutations of KRAS and PIK3CA. Therefore, we hypothesized that simultaneous inhibition of two pathways by combining metformin with BEZ235 could be more effective in the suppression of proliferation than single agent treatment in HCT15 CRC cells. Here, we investigated the combinatory effect of metformin and BEZ235 on the cell survival in HCT15 CRC cells. Our study shows that both of the two signaling pathways can be blocked by this combinational strategy: metformin suppressed both pathways by inhibiting the phosphorylation of ERK, 4E-BP1 and S6, and BEZ235 suppressed PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway by reducing the phosphorylation of 4E-BP1 and S6. This combination treatment synergistically reduced cell viability. The combination index (CI) values ranged from 0.44 to 0.88, indicating synergism for the combination. These results offer a preclinical rationale for the potential therapeutic option for the treatment of CRC.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.638-645
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• 2015

This study analyzed the physiological quality of Mesembryanthemum crystallinum (ice plant) extract. M. crystallinum is a succulent plant found in Africa, southern Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. It has known antidiabetic, antioxidant, and activation of lipid metabolism effects. Extracts from M. crystallinum were prepared with methanol (MCM), ethanol (MCE), hot water (MCHW), and methanol after hot water (MCHM) extractions. The yields of MCM, MCE, MCHW, and MCHM were 0.37, 0.33, 0.50, and 0.07%, respectively. To determine the biological activities of the extracts, mushroom tyrosinase, pancreatic lipase, 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging, nitric oxide (NO) production, and α-glucosidase assays were conducted. The DPPH radical scavenging activity of the MCHW extract was 62.9% at a concentration of 400 μg/ml, which was the highest of all the extracts. The MCM extract showed the highest inhibition activity of α-glucosidase and NO production (56.6 and 57.2%, respectively). The pancreatic lipase inhibition of the MCE extract was similar to that of the MCM extract, with significant inhibition of 90%. The mushroom tyrosinase inhibition of all the extracts was very low (approximately 30%). These results suggest that extracts from M. crystallinum have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiobesity, and antidiabetic activities. Thus, it may have potential as a functional food product and therapeutic potential as an antidiabetic or antiobesity agent.