The flavonoid rutin (quercetin-3-rutinoside), is a flavonol glycoside comprised of the flavonol quercetin and the disaccharide rutinose. In this study, using HPLC-ED system, quantification of rutin was carried out in different extracts of medicinal plants. Analyses of rutin were performed with leaves and flowers of 50 medicinal plants of rue, buckwheat, rose, sage, calendula, chamomile, elder, dandelion, feverfew, lemon balm, linden, thyme, valerian, stinging nettle, cloves, dog rose, pansy, parsley, cowslip, rose etc. Rutin was extracted with hot water. Supernatant was used for analyses. The standard solution was 0.2 μg/20 μL rutin. Content of rutin (mg/g) was highest in the leaves of rue (86.0) followed by flowers of buckwheat (53.5), the leaves from buckwheat (20.0), flowers of pansy (33.5) and flowers of rose (10.0). In all other plants, the content of rutin was lower than 0.5 mg/g. The lowest content rutin (0.25 mg/g) was found in the leaves of lemon balm. The high concentration of rutin in flowers and leaves of rue, buckwheat, pansy and rose provided more importance to rue, buckwheat, pansy and rose as medicinal and diet plants.

Aim: Nitric oxide is involved in pathological processes that lead to tissue damage partly because of its free radical nature. Oxidative stress and vascular dysfunction are recognized contributors in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease and vascular dementia. We investigated the serum concentration of nitric acid in 20 patients with probable Alzheimer disease, 20 patients with probable vascular dementia and in 19 control subjects. We also aimed to determine the association between this concentration and cognitive impairment tested by Mini-Mental State Examination in the disease groups.

Atopic eczema is a chronic inflammatory skin disease which shares some psychological and neuroendocrine disturbances with patients suffering from depression. In view of recent findings of an attenuated response of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system in patients with atopic eczema during a human corticotropin-releasing hormone (hCRH) challenge paradigm fourteen consecutive non-specifically trained in-patients with atopic eczema (8 men, 6 women) and an age-matched control group (8 men, 6 women) performed exhausting incremental graded bicycle exercise to evaluate cortisol, adrenocorticotropin (ACTH), beta-endorphin, epinephrine and norepinephrine releases induced by physical stress. The exercise yielded significant increases in cortisol, ACTH, beta-endorphin, epinephrine and norepinephrine concentrations in both groups. Patients with severe eczema displayed a significantly lower increase in norepinephrine levels when compared with the less affected patient group. In contrast to the challenge with exogenous hCRH no substantial difference in the net responses of ACTH and cortisol could be detected between patients with atopic eczema and controls using the physical stress paradigm. These substantial differences in the net outcome between both challenges may be related to the potential synergizing effects of various neuropeptides, e.g. CRH and vasopressin, when activating the HPA system by challenges at a suprapituitary site which may override subtle disturbances in the responsivity of the HPA system as revealed by CRH challenge alone in patients with atopic eczema.

The aim of this study was to compare total phenols and sulfur content in ramsons and two garlic species, autumn- and spring-garlic. Harvesting time for ramsons was May and for garlics was June. Total phenol content was determined by the Singleton-Rossi method, which is based on phenol oxidation using Folin-Ciocalteu reagent and spectrophotometric quantification of reduced blue-colored products. For total sulfur analysis, all sulfur molecular species were oxidised to the stable sulfate form, which was quantified by ion chromatography (HPIC). The quantity of phenolic compounds (mg phenols/g fresh sample) was the highest for the leaves of autumn-garlic (1.97mg/g), followed by leaves of spring-garlic (1.49mg/g) and ramsons (1.28mg/g). A lower phenol content was found in the bulbs: spring-garlic bulb (0.80mg/g), autumn-garlic bulb (0.48mg/g) and ramson bulb (0.46mg/g). The highest sulfur level (mg sulfur/g fresh sample) was found in spring-garlic leaf (1.10mg/g) while the quantity of sulfur for other samples were: ramsons bulb (0.93mg/g), ramsons leaf (0.74mg/g), spring-garlic bulb (0.70mg/g), autumn-garlic leaf (0.66mg/g) and autumn-garlic bulb (0.63mg/g). Levels of sulfur compounds and total phenol content in the bulbs and leaves correlated with the age of the plant. Garlic leaves can be used as a significant source of organosulfur compounds for middle to late spring.