The Anti-fatigue Activity Analysis Of Maca And Kelp And Their Application

Maca(Lepidium meyenii), a rarely high plateau plant, which is effective in physiological functions. Maca was introduced into China in 2002, and authorized to be a new resource food in 2011. Up to 2014, the output of maca fruit was over 800 thousand tons. Kelp(Laminaria japonica), a marine plant, is a traditional food, which is abundant in nutrition and delicious. In the present study, research of maca and kelp on anti-fatigue activity was carried out, aimed to provide technical support for developing anti-fatigue functional food.Investigations on nutritional compositions revealed that the total sugar content, the total protein conten, the total polyphenol of maca and maca aqueous extracts was 27.58±0.03%、12.29±4.30%, 0.21±0.002% and 69.32±0.23%、13.45±1.44, 0.23±0.06%, respectively. A highly purified maca polysaccharide was gained by way of “water extract and alcohol precipitate”. The purity of maca polysaccharide was 90.41±2.55%, and monosaccharide composition was analyzed by Ion Chromatography(IC) to be 54% of glucose.In the present study, maca aqueous extracts and maca polysaccharide are demonstrated to be effective in reducing capacity(IC50 was 1.51 and 0.81 mg/m L, respectively) and Fe2+ chelating ability(AC0.5 was 3.38 and 7.48 mg/m L, respectively), meanwhile kelp extracts and kelp polysaccharide are effective in Fe2+ chelating ability(IC50 was 0.96 and 1.03 mg/m L, respectively) and ?OH scavenging activity(IC50 was 1.59 and 4.39 mg/m L, respectively). It indicate that they are all effective on anti-oxidant activity.Anti-fatigue mouse model was established. The results revealed that, in the maca powder group, the forced swim time(FST) was 32.84±6.73 min, hypoxia tolerance time(HT) was 47.19±2.03 min, blood sugar ratio(BSR) was 8.71±4.89%, blood lactic acid(BLA) was 5.6±0.25 mmol/L, lactic dehydrogenase(LDH) was 13.88±1.49 IU/d L, the liver glycogen(LG) was 11.39±0.31 mg/g and the muscle glycogen(MG) was 1.74±0.01 mg/g, all significantly performed better than that of the control group(p<0.05). Meanwhile, the FST, HT, BSR, blood urea nitrogen(BUN), LG and MG of the maca aqueous extracts group; the FST, HT, BSR, LG and MG of the maca polysaccharide group; the FST, HT, BSR, BLA, BUN, LG and MG of the kelp aqueous extracts group, are just like indexes of the maca powder described above, all performed better than that of the control group(p<0.05), which indicate that they are all effective on anti-fatigue and anti-hypoxia. In the kelp polysaccharide group, the FST is 41.05±5.60 min, BSR is 11.29±11.51%, and LG is 9.49 mg/g, which indicates kelp polysaccharide is effective on anti-fatigue.Based on the results above, a kind of new product named “essence of maca and seaweed” was developed, in which maca and kelp were used as the main materials, and collagen peptide and longan were added as accessory. In vitro anti-fatigue experiment this product performed well on reducing capacity and ?OH free radical scavenging activity, indicats that “essence of maca and seaweed” is effective on anti-oxidant activity. And a new yogurt named “yogurt with maca” was developed as well, which has been demonstrated to be effective in prolonging the FST and stabilize the BSR of mice, indicat that “yogurt with maca” is effective on anti-fatigue activity.