Rapid metabolic fingerprinting with the aid of chemometric models to identify authenticity of natural medicines:Turmeric,Ocimum,and Withania somnifera study / 药物分析学报

Herbal medicines are popular natural medicines that have been used for decades.The use of alternative medicines continues to expand rapidly across the world.The World Health Organization suggests that quality assessment of natural medicines is essential for any therapeutic or health care applications,as their therapeutic potential varies between different geographic origins,plant species,and varieties.Classification of herbal medicines based on a limited number of secondary metabolites is not an ideal approach.Their quality should be considered based on a complete metabolic profile,as their pharmacological activity is not due to a few specific secondary metabolites but rather a larger group of bioactive compounds.A holistic and integrative approach using rapid and nondestructive analytical strategies for the screening of herbal med-icines is required for robust characterization.In this study,a rapid and effective quality assessment system for geographical traceability,species,and variety-specific authenticity of the widely used natural medicines turmeric,Ocimum,and Withania somnifera was investigated using Fourier transform near-infrared(FT-NIR)spectroscopy-based metabolic fingerprinting.Four different geographical origins of turmeric,five different Ocimum species,and three different varieties of roots and leaves of Withania somnifera were studied with the aid of machine learning approaches.Extremely good discrimination(R2＞0.98,Q2＞0.97,and accuracy=1.0)with sensitivity and specificity of 100％was achieved using this metabolic fingerprinting strategy.Our study demonstrated that FT-NIR-based rapid metabolic fingerprinting can be used as a robust analytical method to authenticate several important medicinal herbs.

Domestic accidents among under-5 year children: a study on the modern day epidemic

Background: Domestic accidents are a priority problem, and urgent attention is required to prevent considerable morbidity and mortality in children of the under-five age group.Methods: Community based cross-section study done in the peri-urban areas of Aligarh, India. Mothers/care-givers were interviewed about any domestic accident faced by children under 5 year age, in the last 1 year, through a semi-structured, pilot tested questionnaire. Multivariable logistic regression was performed using SPSS 24.0 software.Results: Majority of respondents were in the age group 20-35 years, majority of the children affected were male (35.6%), and in the age group of 3 to <4 years (22.3%). Most accidents occurred inside home, most commonly due to falls, followed by sharp injury and burn. Mother’s education level had a significant association with the occurrence of domestic accidents (odd’s ratio: 2.34, CI: 1.08-5.07).Conclusions: Domestic accidents among children are prevalent in the study area. Dissemination of injury prevention information with special focus on household modification and increased parental supervision are effective strategies to prevent unintentional injury.