Preventive and Therapeutic Role of Functional Ingredients of Barley Grass for Chronic Diseases in Human Beings

Abstract

Barley grass powder is the best functional food that provides nutrition and eliminates toxins from cells in human beings; however, its functional ingredients have played an important role as health benefit. In order to better cognize the preventive and therapeutic role of barley grass for chronic diseases, we carried out the systematic strategies for functional ingredients of barley grass, based on the comprehensive databases, especially the PubMed, Baidu, ISI Web of Science, and CNKI, between 2008 and 2017. Barley grass is rich in functional ingredients, such as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), flavonoids, saponarin, lutonarin, superoxide dismutase (SOD), K, Ca, Se, tryptophan, chlorophyll, vitamins (A, B1, C, and E), dietary fiber, polysaccharide, alkaloid, metallothioneins, and polyphenols. Barley grass promotes sleep; has antidiabetic effect; regulates blood pressure; enhances immunity; protects liver; has anti-acne/detoxifying and antidepressant effects; improves gastrointestinal function; has anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, hypolipidemic, and antigout effects; reduces hyperuricemia; prevents hypoxia, cardiovascular diseases, fatigue, and constipation; alleviates atopic dermatitis; is a calcium supplement; improves cognition; and so on. These results support that barley grass may be one of the best functional foods for preventive chronic diseases and the best raw material of modern diet structure in promoting the development of large health industry and further reveal that GABA, flavonoids, SOD, K-Ca, vitamins, and tryptophan mechanism of barley grass have preventive and therapeutic role for chronic diseases. This paper can be used as a scientific evidence for developing functional foods and novel drugs for barley grass for preventive chronic diseases.

Molecular Mechanism of Functional Ingredients in Barley to Combat Human Chronic Diseases

“…Oxidative stress and inflammation are two important factors of atherosclerosis, and polysaccharide extracts with antioxidation and anti-inflammation of hulless barley prevent cardiovascular diseases [17]. Some other functional components of barley have been associated with 6 Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity cardiovascular health, such as polyphenols, phytosterols, lignans, tocols, and folate [18].…”

“…Barley can be grown in four seasons (spring, summer, autumn, and winter) at 1,900-2,300 m in Yunnan province of China which may be associated with harboring 300 enzymes in barley grass [6]. The diet high in sodium and low four diets (whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds) were major dietary risk factors for deaths and disability-adjusted life-years globally and in many countries [2]; however, the whole grain is the manifestation of resistant starch type I surrounded by protein matrix and bran layer for making the starch unavailable for enzymes.…”

“…Barley is the oldest and more important cereal crop with the utmost dietary fiber in the world; its malt, as a functional food, is not only the largest beer raw material in the world but also one of the 300 most commonly used Chinese herbal medicines [6]. Our review point out that barley grass has antidiabetic, anticancer, antidepressant, antioxidant, fatigue, anti-inflammatory, hypolipidemic, antigout, calcium supplementary, and antiacne/detoxifying effects; promotes sleep; regulates blood pressure; enhances immunity; protects liver; reduces hyperuricemia; alleviates atopic dermatitis; improves cognition, constipation, gastrointestinal function; and prevents hypoxia, cardiovascular diseases, and so on [6]. Barley grass powder is known to play a pivotal role in prevention of 20 chronic diseases that involves six molecular mechanism of GABA, flavonoids, SOD, K-Ca, vitamins, and tryptophan [202]; however, barley grains play key roles in prevention of 20 chronic diseases that involves six molecular mechanism of β-glucans, polyphenols, arabinoxylan, phytosterols, tocols, and resistant starch.…”

“…Barley grass is not only the best functional food for cell nutrition and detoxification in human body but also the most abundant bioactive ingredients for lots of health-promoting effects [6,7]. It can combat more than 20 chronic diseases due to GABA, flavonoids, SOD, K-Ca, vitamins, and trypto-phan mechanism in barley grass (Figure 1) [6]. The sustaining major foods+barley grass powder can achieve the WHO's intake target of low sodium (<2 g) with high potassium (>3.5 g) every day [8].…”

Probing the storage stability and sensorial characteristics of wheat and barley grasses juice

“…Lifestyle-related disorder like anemia can be cured by the powerful effectiveness of green grasses (Padalia, Drabu, Raheja, Gupta, & Dhamija, 2010;Zeng et al, 2018). The most notable quality of the green grasses juice is its high chlorophyll content which is involved in regeneration of blood or acts as substitute of hemoglobin in case when deficiency of hemoglobin occurs.…”