Medicinal plants, as part of traditional ingestion practices, may contain antioxidants to combat the oxidative stress which is implicated in prediabetes as well as many of the complications of diabetes, As Indigenous Peoples move further from their traditional lifestyles, and therefore their use of medicinal plants, incidence of diabetes has increased dramatically, Those medicinal plants of the boreal forest that have been used for 3 or more symptoms of diabetes or its complications were selected for analysis. Three different assays (DPPH, NBT/xanthine oxidase and DCF/APPH) determined the antioxidant activity of 35 medicinal plant species. The majority of the species (89%) had free radical scavenging activity significantly greater than the market produce tested (Tukey, P < 0.05), 63% had superoxide scavenging activities similar to vitamin C, and eight species had free radical scavenging activity similar to green tea. Considering that many of these species are also used for food or beverage they represent an antioxidant benefit to the traditional lifestyle. Among the parts used medicinally, roots and barks were used the most frequently with activity in the order of fruit > bark > leaves > roots. The perennials selected had activity in rank trees > shrubs > herbs and the activity associated with habitat found rocky areas > woodland > wet/boggy habitats. Species used for symptoms such as diarrhea, rheumatism, tonic and heart/chest pain were typically high in antioxidant activity. Using cluster analysis it was determined that species used for diarrhea and heart disease as well as those used for a combination of tonic, sores, urinary, blood, pregnancy and boils could also be species with high antioxidant activity. The greater the number of symptoms a species was used for, the greater the activity. Three species with high antioxidant activities, Rhus hirta, Cornus stolonifera and Solidago canadensis, inhibited TNF production in human macrophage cells suggesting a po
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.36654 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | McCune, Letitia M. |
| Contributors | Johns, T. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Plant Science.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001745274, proquestno: NQ64619, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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