No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Abstract.The interest for lupin is continuously growing: one driving force are the numerous studies showing it provides useful health benefits. This review discusses available literature in the area of dyslipidaemia, diabetes, and hypertension prevention, providing hints on the mechanism of action.The addition of lupin protein to the diet of different models of hypercholesterolaemia, such as rat, rabbit, hamster and pig, induce decreases of total and non-HDL cholesterol. The clinical investigations on the cholesterol lowering activity provided controversial results. Those involving hypercholesterolaemic subjects and based on improved lupin foods gave statistically significant total and/or LDL-cholesterol reductions: both protein and fibre are relevant. The moderate hypotensive activity observed in some studies is probably linked to digestion-released ACE-inhibitory peptides.The hypoglycaemic activity, observed in post-prandial studies, is due to gamma-conglutin, a specific protein fraction. All this information suggests that lupin seeds may become a source of ingredients of innovative functional foods.Abbreviations: ACE, angiotensin converting enzyme; Akt, protein kinase B; DBP; diastolic blood pressure; GSK3, glycogen synthase kinase 3; HDL-C, high-density-lipoprotein cholesterol;HMGCoA, 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A; LDL-C, low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol; NL-LUP, narrow-leaf lupin protein isolate; NPS, non-starch polysaccharides; PI3K, phosphatidylinositol 3'-kinase; SBP, systolic blood pressure; SCAP, SREBP-cleavage activating protein; SREBP, sterol regulatory element binding protein; TAG, triacylglycerides; TOC, tocopherol; W-LUP, white lupin protein isolate.

The intake of lupin-based foods could imply the exposure of consumers to quinolizidine alkaloids. The objectives of this study were to assess the genetic variation among and within 11 geographic regions of Lupinus albus ecotypes, verify the quinolizidine alkaloids amount of alkaloid-poor L. albus and Lupinus angustifolius varieties, and assess the effect of two climatically contrasting Italian environments on the alkaloid content. The quantitation was performed by GC-MS, and in all samples lupanine was the most abundant quinolizidine alkaloid, followed by albine and 13alpha-hydroxylupanine for L. albus and by 13alpha-hydroxylupanine and angustifoline for L. angustifolius. Some regions tended to have a high (Azores) or low (Egypt, Near East, Maghreb) total alkaloids content, but the variation among ecotypes within regions was larger than that among regions following the estimation of variance components. Alkaloid-poor varieties tended to have higher total alkaloid contents when grown in the subcontinental climate site, exceeding in some cases the limit of 0.200 mg/g.