John M. Hunter

Safety studies on products from whole coffee fruit

The fruit of the coffee plant, Coffea arabica, has high phenolic antioxidant and phytonutrient content and could be a beneficial food ingredient. However, the fruit has historically been discarded for the favored harvesting of the coffee bean alone. CoffeeBerry products are derived from the whole fruit and include a ground whole powder, a water extract, and a more recently developed water-ethanol extract. The safety of CoffeeBerry products was evaluated in three genotoxicity studies, three short-term oral toxicity studies, and a 90-day dietary toxicity study. Bacterial mutagenicity studies and a micronucleus test using murine peripheral cells demonstrated that none of the three products showed mutagenic or genotoxic potential. In the short-term studies, despite palatability issues, female rats showed a tolerance for whole powder and ethanol extract at doses up to 8800 mg/kg bw/day. Male rats also exhibited palatability issues and tolerated lower doses of approximately 4000 mg/kg bw/day ethanol extract via gavage and approximately 2100 mg/kg bw/day whole powder or water extract in the diet. When fed in the diet to Sprague-Dawley rats for 90 days, ethanol extract showed no adverse effects at dietary concentrations of up to 5% (approximately 3446 and 4087 mg/kg bw/day for male and female rats, respectively).

Simultaneous Quantitation of Boric Acid and Calcium Fructoborate in Dietary Supplements by HPTLC–Densitometry

The paper describes a new, simple, selective and precise high-performance thin-layer chromatographic (HPTLC) method for the simultaneous identification and quantitative determination of boric acid (BA) and calcium fructoborate (CFB) in bulk and tablet/capsule dosage forms of dietary supplements. HPTLC silica gel G 60 F254 precoated glass plates were used as the stationary phase. The mobile phase consisted of 2-propanol-water 8:2 (v/v). The two boron-based compounds were adequately separated with the Rf values of 0.83 ± 0.01 (BA) and 0.59 ± 0.01 (CFB).

Oxidative stress or redox signalling – new insights into the effects of a proprietary multifunctional botanical dietary supplement

Abstract Recent interest has focused on maintenance of healthy levels of redox signalling and the related oxidants; these parameters are crucial for providing us with concrete nutritional targets that may help us to better understand and maintain “optimal health”. Following the above hypothesis, we performed a pilot double-blind, crossover, placebo-controlled, single dose study to measure the dose-dependent effects of a proprietary plant-based dietary supplement labelled here as S7 (SPECTRA7), related to how it affected the cellular metabolic index (CMI) in healthy human participants (n = 8). We demonstrated using the electron spin resonance/electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer NOXYSCAN that the administration S7 resulted in statistically significant, long-term, dose-dependent inhibition of mitochondrial and cellular reactive oxygen species generation by as much as 9.2 or 17.7% as well as 12.0 or 14.8% inhibition in extracellular nicotinamide-dinucleotide-phosphate oxidase system-dependent generation of O2•−, and 9.5 or 44.5% inhibition of extracellular H2O2 formation. This was reflected with dose-dependent 13.4 or 17.6% inhibition of tumour necrosis factor alpha induced cellular inflammatory resistance and also 1.7 or 2.3-times increases of bioavailable NO concentration. In this pilot study, we demonstrated the ability of a natural supplement to affect cellular redox signalling, which is considered by many researchers as oxidative stress. The design and activity of this proprietary plant-based material, in combination with the newly developed “CMI” test, demonstrates the potential of using dietary supplements to modulate redox signalling. This opens the door to future research into the use of S7 for modulation of inflammatory markers, for sports endurance or recovery applications.

Oxidative Stress or Redox Signaling - New Insights into the Effects of a Proprietary Multifunctional Botanical Dietary Supplement

Recent interest has focused on maintenance of healthy levels of redox signaling and the related oxidants; these parameters are crucial for providing us with concrete nutritional targets that may help us to better understand and maintain “optimal health”. Following the above hypothesis we performed a pilot double blind, crossover, placebo controlled, single dose study to measure the dose dependent effects of a proprietary plant-based dietary supplement labeled here as S7 (SPECTRA7), related to how it affected the cellular metabolic index (CMI) in healthy human participants (n = 8). We demonstrated using the EPR spectrometer NOXYSCAN that the administration S7 resulted in statistically significant, long-term, dose dependent inhibition of mitochondrial and cellular ROS generation by as much as 9.2 or 17.7 % as well as 12.0 or 14.8% inhibition in extracellular NADPH system-dependent generation of O2•‒ and 9.5 or 44.5% inhibition of extracellular H2O2 formation. This was reflected with dose dependent 13.4 or 17.6% inhibition of TNF-alpha induced cellular inflammatory resistance and also 1.7 or 2.3-times increases of bioavailable NO concentration. In this pilot study we demonstrated the ability of a natural supplement to effect cellular redox signaling, which is considered by many researchers as oxidative stress. The design and activity of this proprietary plant-based material, in combination with the newly developed “CMI” test, demonstrates the potential of using dietary supplements to modulate redox signaling. This opens the door to future research into the use of S7 for modulation of inflammatory markers, for sports endurance or recovery applications.

Plant Borates and Potential Uses to Promote Post-training Recovery and to Mitigate Overtraining Syndrome

Scientific research shows that overtraining syndrome (OTS) is based on a multifactorial mechanism involving regulation of metabolism, muscle micro-injuries, follow-up recovery via myokines and finally, inflammation leading to symptoms such as depression, loss of appetite, muscle strength, predisposition to infections and other characteristics of overtraining. This complex scheme requires additional clinical investigation in order to better understand the delicate balance between muscle response to overtraining under various metabolic conditions, and the muscle repair system mediated by myokines under normal or inflammatory conditions. Overtraining may prevent all healthy benefits of exercise mediated by myokines, particularly under inflammatory conditions. Therefore, prevention of inflammation may be important in promoting optimal muscle repair and growth, to maintain myokine-mediated health benefits of training, rapid recovery, better endurance and to prevent development of OTS. Based upon published results thus far, the use of boron-containing calcium fructoborate is proposed, since this material shows acute anti-inflammatory activities as measured by CRP, TNF-alpha, IL-1b, YKL-40, and calcitirol, criteria that have been associated with positive effects on muscle function, growth and differentiation and thus may contribute to protection of, and recovery from, muscle damage from overtraining.