Re: Fw: [BDA] Article:

[Guest guest]

No, I am coming over and sharing half of that basket!

Fw: [bDA] Article:

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> It's not an apple a day after all -- it's strawberries: Flavonoids could

> represent two-fisted assault on diabetes and nervous system disorders

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> A recent study from scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological

> Studies suggests that a strawberry a day (or more accurately, 37 of them)

> could keep not just one doctor away, but an entire fleet of them,

> including

> the neurologist, the endocrinologist, and maybe even the oncologist.

> See Also:

> Investigations conducted in the Salk Institute's Cellular Neurobiology

> Laboratory (CNL) will appear in the June 27, 2011, issue of PLoS ONE. The

> report explains that fisetin, a naturally-occurring flavonoid found most

> abundantly in strawberries and to a lesser extent in other fruits and

> vegetables, lessens complications of diabetes. Previously, the lab showed

> that fisetin promoted survival of neurons grown in culture and enhanced

> memory in healthy mice. That fisetin can target multiple organs strongly

> suggests that a single drug could be used to mitigate numerous medical

> complications.

> " This manuscript describes for the first time a drug that prevents both

> kidney and brain complications in a type 1 diabetes mouse model, " says

>

> Schubert, Ph.D., professor and head of the Cellular Neurobiology

> Laboratory

> and one of the manuscript's co-authors. " Moreover, it demonstrates the

> probable molecular basis of how the therapeutic is working. "

> Pam Maher, Ph.D., a senior staff scientist in the CNL, is the study's

> corresponding author. Maher initially identified fisetin as a

> neuroprotective flavonoid ten years ago. " In plants, flavonoids act as

> sunscreens and protect leaves and fruit from insects, " she explains. " As

> foods they are implicated in the protective effect of the 'Mediterranean

> Diet.' "

> Other celebrity flavonoids include polyphenolic compounds in blueberries

> and red wine.

> Although her group's focus is neurobiology, Maher and colleagues reasoned

> that, like other flavonoids, fisetin might ameliorate a spectrum of

> disorders seen in diabetic patients. To test this, they evaluated effects

> of

> fisetin supplementation in Akita mice, a very robust model of type 1

> diabetes, also called childhood onset diabetes.

> Akita mice exhibit increased blood sugar typical of type 1 diabetes and

> display pathologies seen in serious human complications of both type 1 and

> 2

> diabetes. Those include diabetic nephropathy or kidney disease,

> retinopathy,

> and neuropathies in which patients lose touch or heat sensations.

> Mice fed a fisetin-enriched diet remained diabetic, but acute kidney

> enlargement-or hypertrophy-seen in untreated mice was reversed, and high

> urine protein levels, a sure sign of kidney disease, fell. Moreover,

> fisetin

> ingestion ameliorated anxiety-related behaviors seen in diabetic mice.

> " Most

> mice put in a large area become exploratory, " says Maher. " But anxious

> mice

> tend not to move around. Akita mice showed enhanced anxiety behavior, but

> fisetin feeding restored their locomotion to more normal levels. "

> The study also defines a likely molecular mechanism underlying these

> effects. Researchers observed that blood and brain levels of sugars

> affixed

> to proteins known as advanced glycation end-products-or AGEs-were reduced

> in

> fisetin-treated compared to untreated Akita mice. These decreases were

> accompanied by increased activity of the enzyme glyoxalase 1, which

> promotes

> removal of toxic AGE precursors.

> The discovery of an AGE-antagonizing enzyme upregulated by fisetin is

> very

> intriguing, because substantial evidence implicates high blood AGE levels

> with many if not most diabetic complications. " We know that fisetin

> increases activity of the glyoxalase enzyme and may increase its

> expression, " says Maher. " But what is important is that ours is the first

> report that any compound can enhance glyoxalase 1 activity. "

> Interestingly, excessively high AGE levels also correlate with

> inflammatory activity thought to promote some cancers. In fact, studies

> published by others confirm that fisetin decreases tumorigenicity of

> prostate cancer cells both in culture and in animal models, which if

> supported would represent a major added incentive to eat your

> strawberries.

> To ingest fisetin levels equivalent to those fed Akita mice, Maher

> estimates that humans would have to eat 37 strawberries a day, assuming

> that

> strawberry fisetin is as readily metabolizable by humans as fisetin-spiked

> lab chow is by mice. Rather than through diet, Maher envisions that

> fisetin-like drugs could be taken as a supplement.

> Schubert notes that fisetin is also effective in mouse models of

> Alzheimer's disease. " We and others have shown that diabetes may be a risk

> factor for Alzheimer's disease, making identification of a safe

> prophylactic

> like fisetin highly significant, " he says.

> Maher acknowledges that the public may be suffering from

> flavonoid-fatigue, given media coverage of the promises of these

> compounds.

> " Polyphenolics like fisetin and those in blueberry extracts are found in

> fruits and vegetables and are related to each other chemically, " she says.

> " There is increasing evidence that they all work in multiple diseases.

> Hopefully some combination of these compounds will eventually get to the

> clinic. "

> Schubert concurs that their findings only reinforce what common sense and

> our mothers told us was a healthy lifestyle. " Eat a balanced diet and as

> much freshly prepared organic food as possible, get some exercise, keep

> socially and mentally active and avoid sodas with sugar and highly

> processed

> foods since they can contain high levels of AGEs, " he advises.

> But he also worries that hoops that must be jumped through to bring a

> natural product like fisetin, as opposed to a totally synthetic drug, to

> clinical trials are daunting because it is difficult to protect patents on

> natural products. " We will never know if a compound like fisetin works in

> humans until someone is willing to support a clinical trial. "

> Also contributing to this study were Dargusch and L.

> Ehren, Ph.D.,of the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory, and Kumar Sharma,

> M.D., and Shinichi Okada, M.D., Ph.D., of the Department of Medicine at

> University of California, San Diego.

> Funding for the study came from the Fritz B. Burns Foundation, the

> Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Hewitt Foundation, and the

> National Institutes of Health.

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