Potential of St. John's wort as antistress medication
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background An increasing number of reports indicate that free radicals are involved in the biochemical mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric disorders in humans [1]. The results of several reports suggest that there is a therapeutic benefit from antioxidant supplementation in unstable manic-depressive patients. It has been shown that antidepressants like St. John's wort extract (SJW), but also fluoxetine significantly increased markers of anti-oxidative capacity, e.g. superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in brain homogenates as well as erythrocyte lysates in unstressed mice [2]. Method The aim of the present study was to evaluate the mechanisms of action of SJW extract (STW 3-VI) in a chronic restraint stress (CRS) model using male Sprague-Dawley rats. Since there is a strong connection between stress and selected neurodegenerative as well as mental disorders such as depression and anxiety the effects of STW 3-VI extract on CRS induced neuroendocrine, neuroimmunological and behavioral changes, on the production of free radicals and antioxidant enzyme activities in the hippocampus and hypothalamus as well as on the protection of immune organs of stressed and non-stressed rats were evaluated. Markers of antioxidant capacity, such as SOD, GPx and catalase (CAT) in the hippocampus and hypothalamus, and on plasma hormone levels (ACTH, corticosterone), as well as on inflammatory markers such as IL-6, TNF-α and C-reactive protein were determined in addition to behavioral changes. Results Our first results show that CRS (1h for 21 consecutive days) significantly decreased thymus and spleen indices in CRS treated controls (control non-stress: 1.64±0.07; 2.41±0.09 vs. control stress: 1.21±0.03; 2.10±0.06, p<0.01). This result indicates that the immune function was diminished when the animals were exposed to CRS. The thymus and spleen indices were unchanged for the unstressed animals receiving fluoxetine (10mg/kg), or SJW extract (125, 250, 500 and 750mg/kg, respectively). However, treating stressed rats with fluoxetine or SJW extract produced a significant and dose dependent increase in both thymus and spleen indices. Conclusions Our data provide new insight into the effects of stress on neuroimmunological and antioxidative parameters as well as into the mechanisms of action of St. John's wort. [1] Herken H, et al.: Arch Med Res 2007; 38: 247–252. [2] Michalski C, et al.: Planta Med 2007; 73: 991 [abstract].
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".