Metabolomics affirms traditional alcoholic beverage raksi as a remedy for high-altitude sickness

Abstract

Raksi, a fermented distilled alcoholic beverage, is an ethnic drink consumed in high altitude regions of Singalila Ridge of the Himalayas and in adjoining high altitude places in Nepal, northern and north eastern part of India and Tibetan plateau. Like jaanr, tongba, nigar, chhyang, and other fermented ethnic beverages, raksi is considered as an element of ethnopharmacology of high altitude with claims of medicinal properties. An ethnobiological survey was done in the study area prior to collection and identification of raksi samples. In this research, two raksi samples (khokim raksi and chimphing raksi) of Singalila Ridge of the Himalayas were investigated by metabolite profiling using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis. Results of the experiment showed presence of several respiratory protective, cardioprotective, neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant components which have properties to prevent various high altitude illnesses. Moreover, large quantities of bioactive terpenoids, fatty acid derivatives, coumarins, and peptides were detected whose chemotaxonomy and biosynthesis pathways were further studied. This metabolomics investigation not only affirmed Raksi as a remedy for high-altitude sickness but also helped in understanding the importance of this type of ethnic foods in high altitude ethnoecology. This research on raksi in the fields of ethnobiology and metabolomics is a cumulative approach which has opened the door for in-depth investigations on similar ethnic foods. However, further experiments on raksi are surely needed in ethnobiology, microbiology, biochemistry, and food technology.

Cyclic Dipeptides: The Biological and Structural Landscape with Special Focus on the Anti-Cancer Proline-Based Scaffold

“…Interestingly, cyclo(Gly-Pro) is a major bioactive component of raksi, an ethnic beverage, considered as a remedy for every possible disorder related to high-altitude sicknesses. This cyclo-dipeptide, reported earlier as antibiotic, is also a potential antioxidant, reported as promising anti-inflammatory, pain reliever, neuroprotective, and antinociceptive [27,188,189]. Cyclo(L-His-L-Pro) and cyclo(L-Trp-L-Pro) are anti-depressants and learning motivation improvers [190].…”

Metabolomics and Network Pharmacology in the Exploration of the Multi-Targeted Therapeutic Approach of Traditional Medicinal Plants

“…In order to explore the diversity of the metabolites in a plant matrix, there are various chromatographic and spectrometric techniques such as GC-MS, LC-MS, NMR, FT-IR, etc., which deal with the qualitative and quantitative exploration of the phytochemicals and each technique works based on their designed principles, hence exploring the complete phytochemistry phenomenon. The study of the medicinal effect of plants exponentially put many research orientations to the plant metabolites to obviate the insufficiency for medicinal plants or their derived products that evades them from meeting their worldwide requirements [ 24 , 25 ]. Plant secondary metabolites are one of the main principles for their quality, safety, and efficacy-based scientific validation; hence, they are exponentially used as the first choice of parameter for their regulatory aspects or authentication, although it has been reported that only safety and efficacy data is not sufficiently meeting the optimum criteria for their scientific evaluation and health prospects [ 26 ].…”

The Himalayan ethnic beverage tongba with therapeutic properties in high-altitude illnesses and metabolomic similarities to Japanese sake

“…According to biologist Picón-Reátegui (1978), food production and availability are definitely tied up to the altitude, weather conditions, soil, and other environmental factors of a region . A series of research has revealed how high altitude can influence human nutrition, dietary habits, and other activities of people (Majumder et al, 2021) . High-altitude ethnoecology shows a rational relationship between its people and their ethnic dietary habits, which directly or indirectly helps a group of people to endure the altitudinal stresses, including weather conditions (Picón-Reátegui, 1978) .…”

“…Highaltitude dietary habits are distinct from the rest of the world, as these have been developed to help locals as well as tourists or visitors to get acclimatized to the surrounding environment, to stay well and recover from various high-altitude illnesses . Traditional knowledge on fermentation technology is considered an important part of food and beverage management in high-altitude regions where obtaining of important functional foods is very difficult and the preservation of food is required to increase the shelf life of processed or harvested foodstuff (Majumder et al ., 2021) . The ethnoecology of Singalila Ridge of the Himalayas (the high-altitude place between Darjeeling, Sikkim, and Nepal) is very distinctive and enriched with plenty of traditional foods prepared by Nepalese and Tibetan ethnic communities, which include a lot of cereal-based fermented beverages such as: jand, or jaanr; raksi, or rakshi; nigar; chyang, or chhaang; tongba or tumba (Tamang & Kailasapathy, 2010;Ray et al, 2016;Majumder et al ., 2021) .…”

“…Tongba, raksi, chyang, and jand, are all well documented in the field of ethnoecology along with some health claims, but only few of them (mainly raksi and chyang) have been subjected to foodomics to be studied scientifically at molecular level (Majumder et al, 2021). So, the objective of this research was to study the volatile profile of tongba and metabolomics to understand the ethnomedicinal properties linked with the beverage .…”