• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.616-623
• /
• 1996

Eum Yang Kwak, the aerial part of Epimedium koreanum, is widely used as a folk medicine for stimulant in man, tonic, and hypotensive purpose. The plant contains icariin (a specific flavonoid), magnoflorine (an alkaloid) and tannin, but their contents are not known until now. In this paper, a quantitative analysis method for them was developed. Determination of icariin and magnoflorine was successfully achived by high performance liquid chromatography equipped with a UV detector in the ranges of $0.1{\sim}0.4\;mg$ and $0.002{\sim}0.1\;mg\;per\;ml$ sample, respectively. Extraction of the plant was carried out with water or 50% ethanol using different decocting temperatures and times. Icariin was well extracted either by water ($100^{\circ}C$, 3hr) or 50% ethanol ($85^{\circ}C$, 1hr), and its content in the plant was measured to be 0.94%. On the other hand, magnoflorine was fully extracted by 50% ethanol ($85^{\circ}C$, 1hr), and its content was determined to be 0.16%. Therefore, decoction of the medicinal plant with water at $100^{\circ}C$ for 3hr turned out to be recommendable for the best extraction.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.410-417
• /
• 2010

Various functional foods, marketing health and functional effects, have been distributed in the market. These products, being in forms of foods, tablets, and capsules, are likely to be mistaken as drugs. In addition, non-experts may sell these as foods, or use these for therapy. Efforts for creating health food regulations or building regulatory system for improving the current status of functional foods have been made, but these have not been communicated to consumers yet. As a result, problems of circulating functional foods for therapy or adding illegal medical to such products have persisted, which has become worse by internet media. The cause of this problem can be categorized into (1) product itself and (2) its use, but in either case, one possible cause is lack of communications with consumers. Potential problems that can be caused by functional foods include illegal substances, hazardous substances, allergic reactions, considerations when administered to patients, drug interactions, ingredients with purity or concentrations too low to be detected, products with metabolic activations, health risks from over- or under-dose of vitamin and minerals, and products with alkaloids. (Journal of Health Science, 56, Supplement (2010)). The reason why side effects related to functional foods have been increasing is that under-qualified functional food companies are exaggerating the functionality for marketing purposes. KFDA has been informing consumers, through its web pages, to address the above mentioned issues related to functional foods, but there still is room for improvement, to promote proper use of functional foods and avoid drug interactions. Specifically, to address these issues, institutionalizing to collect information on approved products and their side effects, settling reevaluation systems, and standardizing preclinical tests and clinical tests are becoming urgent. Also to provide crucial information, unified database systems, seamlessly aggregating heterogeneous data in different domains, with user interfaces enabling effective one-stop search, are crucial.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.90-98
• /
• 2009

Every spring, Korea is always plagued by sandy dust from the western region of China and Mongolia. Yellow sand is causing an environmental problem to Japan and far into the American continent, let alone Korea. At present, the western region of China is going under desertification at a great speed due to climatic change and humans' damaging activities. To cope with this, each country including China is considering ecological restoration of deserts through planting. Accordingly, this research conducted a vegetation survey on Baicheng district which is a representative dry land of western China to obtain a basic data for ecological restoration of a desert. The survey revealed that Setaria viridis which invaded an arid land made a succession into Setaria viridis-Cannabis sativa var. fruderalis community together with Artemisia mongolica-Setaria viridis community due to the increase in salt concentration and alkalization subsequent to dryness. It was also found out that there finally formed Artemisia mongolica community on a flat intense in harsh wind and dryness with the continuous worsening of environmental conditions. There appeared a different type of vegetation on hilly districts where sporadic shade could come into being because the air humidity could be available relatively there. Frequently, typically appearing at the whole survey area, the Tributlus terrestris community was found to make succession into Tribulus terrestris-Cleisrogenes squarrosa community due to the aggravation of soil environment. In addition, with the worsening of the environment at hilly districts, there formed Clesirogenes squarrosa community resistant to dryness, salinity in soil and strong alkalinity. Further, there appeared higher plant life totalling to 62 taxa comprising 58 species and 4 varieties with 27 families and 49 genuses at the whole survey area. Among these, Compositae plants excellent in resistance to environment was surveyed the most, accounting for 27%.

• Applied Microscopy
• /
• v.37 no.1
• /
• pp.11-21
• /
• 2007

Saengshik which is food not to apply heat is expected to have good effect on the body because metabolic enzymes are preserved in it. In fact, despite of enlargement of saengshik market, the researches on the effect of saengshik are insufficient. So, the aim of this study was to investigate the protective effect of saengshik against $CCl_4-inducing$ hepatotoxicity in ICR mice. As the result of serum biochemical parameters, AST (SGOT) and ALT (SGPT) were significantly decreased at the experimental group treated with saengshik and $CCl_4$ as compared with experimental group 1 treated with $CCl_4$ only (p<0.01). ALP was significantly higher at experimental group 2 compared with control and experimental group 1 (p<0.01). In histological study, experimental group 1 treated with $CCl_4$ only showed severe necrosis all over the liver at the gross observation, and showed severe perivenular necrosis and individual hepatocytic degeneration. However experimental group 2 was not nearly different from control group in appearance and showed mild perivenular necrosis and dominant sever neutrophil infiltration surrounding central veins. The result of this study showed the protective effect against $CCl_4-inducing$ hepatotoxicity and suggest the possibility of the functional health food. However, further studies about the effect of saengshik may be needed.