Psoriasis
is an inflammatory disease of the epidermis based on
an immunological mechanism involving Langerhans cells and T lymphocytes
that produce pro-inflammatory cytokines. Genetic factors, environmental
factors, and improper nutrition are considered triggers of the disease.
Numerous studies have reported that in a high number of patients,
psoriasis is associated with obesity. Excess adipose tissue, typical
of obesity, causes a systemic inflammatory status coming from the
inflammatory active adipose tissue; therefore, weight reduction is
a strategy to fight this pro-inflammatory state. This study aimed
to evaluate how a nutritional regimen based on a ketogenic diet influenced
the clinical parameters, metabolic profile, and inflammatory state
of psoriasis patients. To this end, 30 psoriasis patients were subjected
to a ketogenic nutritional regimen and monitored for 4 weeks by evaluating
the clinical data, biochemical and clinical parameters, NMR metabolomic
profile, and IL-2, IL-1β, TNF-α, IFN-γ, and IL-4
concentrations before and after the nutritional regimen. Our data
show that a low-calorie ketogenic diet can be considered a successful
strategy and therapeutic option to gain an improvement in psoriasis-related
dysmetabolism, with significant correction of the full metabolic and
inflammatory status.
Food industry produces a large amount of onion wastes. Due to the high amount of bioactive compounds in onion by-products an idea for their reuse, could be use them as source of high-value functional and health ingredients. In this study, outer dry layers of coppery onion "Ramata di Montoro" were used as source of bioactive compounds. Firstly, the chemical profile of secondary metabolites of exhaustive extract, obtained by ultrasound assisted extraction was established by UHPLC-UV-HRMS/MS analysis. Subsequently, the supercritical fluid extraction was used as alternative and green method to recover flavonoids from onion skin. Main parameters such as pressure, temperature and composition of solvent modifier were optimized in order to improve the extraction efficiency of SFE technique, by using a response surface Box-Behnken design.
Artichoke by-products, produced from agricultural procedures and the processing industry, represent a huge amount of discarded material. In this research, the main artichoke by-products, bracts and leaves, were characterized in terms of their bioactive constituents (phenolic compounds and inulin) and cellular antioxidant potential to estimate their nutraceutical potential. The ultrahigh-performance-ultraviolet detection-high resolution mass spectroscopy (UHPLC-UV-HRMS) profiles of both by-products show that 5-caffeoylquinic acid and 1,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid are the most abundant bioactive compounds, and the content of flavone glycosides can be used to discriminate between bracts and leaves. Artichoke by-products contain a remarkable overall phenolic content (0.5-1.7 g per 100 g dry matter), whereas they differ widely in the amounts of inulin with higher levels in bracts (3.8-8.2 g per 100 g dry matter). The cellular antioxidant activities of bract and leaf extracts (half maximal effective concentration (EC) = 26.6-124.1 mg L) are better than or similar to that of a commercial leaf extract, and are related to the dicaffeoylquinic acid levels, particularly to 1,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid. These results reveal that artichoke by-products are a promising and cheap source of bioactive compounds. Bracts could be used as a source of inulin and caffeoylquinic acids for the production of food additives and nutraceuticals and also as an alternative to the traditional application of leaf extracts.
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