Research of the water extract of corn silk, lotus leaf and dandelion on hepatoprotection

• Main Authors: Yan-Zhu Chen, 陳彥竹
• Other Authors: Chi-Ching Yang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/27033813421868829945

碩士 === 國立屏東科技大學 === 食品科學系所 === 98 === Liver is the very important organ of human body and its major role is in metabolism and detoxification. However, excessive toxicity and outside stimulation lead to damage of liver, and subsequently cause liver dysfunction. In many kinds of herbs, there are a lot of natural active ingredients including antioxidants which help people to defend the damage caused by free radicals. Corn silk (Maydis stigma), lotus leaf (Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn) and dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) have used for many years because of the efficacies including antioxidation, liver protecting and gallbladder etc. In our experiment, we used each water-extract of corn silk, lotus leaf, dandelion and mixture as samples to study its antioxidative activity and effect on clone-9 cells and SD rats. The result of antioxidation assay showed that had better antioxidant activity on the water extract of lotus leaf, and that is a good antioxidation source of herbs mixture. In the cell test, the water extract of herbs mixture (WEHM) have the best effect of cell viability on the CCl4-induced clone-9 cells and can prevent cell damage induced by CCl4. The result of animal model showed that the content of alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and TG in the serum of rats fed with water extract of herbs mixture decreased obviously. Besides, the activity of liver enzymes including glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, glutathione, catalase and superoxide dismutase increased significantly but the liver malondialdehyde trended down. In the histology observation of liver, rats fed with water extract of herbs mixture reduced bile duct proliferation, cell necrosis and liver fibrosis. Our experiment confirmed that water extract of herbs mixture can reduce CCl4-induced liver injury by regulating the related antioxidant enzymes of liver.