Daily feeding of drinking water containing lead acetate (160 mg/l) or 10% alcohol by volume or a combination of both to rats for a month produced certain deleterious effects through oxidative stress. Both heavy metal lead and alcohol are capable of doing such damages. The deleterious alterations observed were in the parameters of blood, serum and tissues, viz; Hb, Pb, proteins, lipids, lipid per oxidation, Vitamins C and E levels and enzyme activities of AST, ALT, and catalase. Simultaneous feeding of either of the two antioxidants garlic oil (GO) and vitamin E at equal doses of 100 mg/kg/day, to the rats counteracted the deleterious effects of the above two chemicals significantly. The maximum damage was brought about by feeding of drinking water containing both lead acetate and alcohol. The protective effects of GO and Vitamin E were not significantly different. The mechanism of actions of the Vitamin E and GO is probably due to their efficiency as detoxifying agents and antioxidants, to scavenging free radicals as well as an independent action of GO on the removal of lead salt as lead sulfide.

Nutraceuticals are nutritional medicines which are present in edible food items.

This review article on the beneficial uses of Allium antioxidants tries to give some answers to the recent doubts raised by Singh et al. (Ind J Clin Biochem 25(3):225-243, 2010) against the claim of some researchers that Antioxidants (AOs) are miraculous molecules. Many people still believe that vitamins like A, C and E are the only true AOs that play important role in the corrections of metabolic derangements in life style diseases and hence all their faults are attributed to the failures of AOs as a class. This is quite unfair as there are many other natural AOs that do equal or even better AO action than the vitamins. Such is the case with the Allium S-alkyl sulfoxide aminoacids and their breakdown products viz, the various poly sulfides and their oxides e.g. allicin and ajoene type compounds which trap electrons mainly. It is true that antioxidant vitamins and b-carotene a precursor of Vitamin A bring about problems as prooxidant or as agents that block some metabolic pathways and gene expression. Again the argument that AOs cannot improve the level of antioxidant enzymes like SOD, catalase and glutathione Px is also not universal. Actually allium AOs can even spare the use of antioxidant vitamins in the body and enhance the action of antioxidant enzymes and supply of ATP and other nutrients to the tissues as the former are good vasodialators and promoters of membrane permeability. The use of AOs should be selective and moderate.

Heavy metal pollution is a global public health challenge due to its stable and persistent environmental contamination. Of these lead is considered to be one of the most common ubiquitous and industrial pollutants and at low concentration it exerts extensive damages to the tissues. Daily feeding of lead acetate solution (Dose: 10 mg/ kg/day) to normal rats for a month adversely altered the parameters of blood, serum and tissues, viz; RBC, WBC, Hb, ë-ALAD (Delta amino levulinic acid dehydratase), Pb content, lipids, oxidized lipids (TBARS), vitamins C and E and GSH levels and activities of AST, ALT and antioxidant enzymes viz; catalase, GR, Gpx and SOD. In order to study whether antioxidants have any effect to counteract the toxicity of lead we have selected comparatively better active allium fractions for the study viz: polar fraction of garlic (PFG) and polar fraction of onion (PFO). On feeding of these active fractions of garlic and onion oils i.e. their polar fractions and vitamin E (Dose 100 mg/kg/day) separately for a month along with or without lead acetate to rats each nutraceutical and vitamin E counteracted the adverse effects of Pb significantly (p B 0.05). Their effects are in the order of PFG [ PFO [ Vitamin E. All these results point out that garlic and onion oils contain natural disulfoxide compounds which act as antioxidant and anti toxic to lead compounds. Their comparative differences in action may be due to the presence and position of double bonds and disulfide oxide bonds in their molecules. i.e., in PFG the allyl disulfide oxide group is present and in PFO saturated methyl and propyl groups and unsaturated propenyl group are present in place of allyl groups. The former group confers a better antioxidant activity on PFG, while the latter groups confer a lesser activity on PFO.