Amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) plant commonly refers to the sustainable food crop for the 21st century. The crop has witnessed significant attention in recent years due to its high nutritional value and agronomic advantages. It is a relatively well-balanced cosmopolitan food that is a protector against chronic diseases. Usually, the antioxidant activities of amaranth are held responsible for its defensive behavior. Antioxidant activity of plants, generally, is attributed to their phytochemical compounds. The current interest, however, lies in hydrolysates and bioactive peptides because of their numerous biological functions, including antioxidant effect. While the importance of bioactive peptides has been progressively recognized, an integrated review of recent studies on the antioxidant ability of amaranth species, especially their hydrolysates and peptides has not been generated. Hence, in this review, we summarize studies focused on the antioxidant capacity of amaranth renewal over the period 2015–2020. It starts with a background and overall image of the amaranth-related published reviews. The current research focusing on in vitro, in vivo, and chemical assays-based antioxidant activity of different amaranth species are addressed. Finally, the last segment includes the latest studies concerning free radical scavenging activity and metal chelation capacity of amaranth protein hydrolysates and bioactive peptides.

Overweight and obesity are significant global public health concerns that are increasing in prevalence at an alarming rate. Numerous studies have demonstrated the benefits of probiotics against obesity. Postbiotics are the next generation of probiotics that include bacteria-free extracts and nonviable microorganisms that may be advantageous to the host and are being increasingly preferred over regular probiotics. However, the impact of postbiotics on obesity has not been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, the goal of this review is to gather in-depth data on the ability of postbiotics to combat obesity. Postbiotics have been reported to have significant potential in alleviating obesity. This review comprehensively discusses the anti-obesity effects of postbiotics in cellular, animal, and clinical studies. Postbiotics exert anti-obesity effects via multiple mechanisms, with the major mechanisms including increased energy expenditure, reduced adipogenesis and adipocyte differentiation, suppression of food intake, inhibition of lipid absorption, regulation of lipid metabolism, and regulation of gut dysbiosis. Future research should include further in-depth studies on strain identification, scale-up of postbiotics, identification of underlying mechanisms, and well-defined clinical studies. Postbiotics could be a promising dietary intervention for the prevention and management of obesity.

Chronic low-grade inflammation may increase the risk of chronic disease, while diets rich in anti-inflammatory components may reduce it. To determine the anti-inflammatory properties of the traditional Korean diet (K-diet) that comprises high amounts of vegetables, fiber and phytochemicals, moderate amounts of legumes, and low amounts of animal fat, ten obese women aged 50–60 years were randomly assigned to the K-diet or control diet group. The control diet was a Westernized Korean diet commonly consumed in Korea, which is high in animal fat and protein. Subjects were housed in metabolic unit-like conditions during the 2-week intervention. Plasma was collected before and after the intervention to measure inflammatory cytokines using ELISA. The dietary inflammatory index (DII) was calculated based on nutrients and food intake. The DII score for the K-diet was lower than that of the control diet (−0.94 ± 1.39 vs. 1.04 ± 1.61, p < 0.001). In the K-diet group, anti-inflammatory interleukin (IL)-10 levels increased (4.45 ± 0.34 pg/mL vs. 5.94 ± 0.33 pg/mL, p = 0.0102), whereas pro-inflammatory nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) levels decreased (7.70 ± 0.62 pg/mL vs. 2.71 ± 0.49 pg/mL, p = 0.0015), but not in the control group. In the K-diet group, NF-κB levels negatively correlated with IL-10 levels (r = −0.794, p = 0.006). The K-diet has anti-inflammatory properties, and IL-10 and NF-κB are putative inflammatory markers for K-diet studies.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to develop Korean food image detection and recognition model for use in mobile devices for accurate estimation of dietary intake. MATERIALS/METHODS: We collected food images by taking pictures or by searching web images and built an image dataset for use in training a complex recognition model for Korean food. Augmentation techniques were performed in order to increase the dataset size. The dataset for training contained more than 92,000 images categorized into 23 groups of Korean food. All images were down-sampled to a fixed resolution of 150 x 150 and then randomly divided into training and testing groups at a ratio of 3:1, resulting in 69,000 training images and 23,000 test images. We used a Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) for the complex recognition model and compared the results with those of other networks: AlexNet, GoogLeNet, Very Deep Convolutional Neural Network, VGG and ResNet, for large-scale image recognition. RESULTS: Our complex food recognition model, K-foodNet, had higher test accuracy (91.3%) and faster recognition time (0.4 ms) than those of the other networks. CONCLUSION: The results showed that K-foodNet achieved better performance in detecting and recognizing Korean food compared to other state-of-the-art models.

In this study, we investigated the effects of black ginseng (BG) and ginsenoside Rb1, which induced browning effects in 3T3-L1 and primary white adipocytes (PWATs) isolated from C57BL/6 mice. BG and Rb1 suppressed the expressions of CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein alpha (C/EBPα) and sterol regulatory element-binding transcription factor-1c (SREBP-1c), whereas the expression level of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) was increased. Furthermore, BG and Rb1 enhanced the protein expressions of the brown-adipocyte-specific markers PR domain containing 16 (PRDM16), peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator-1 alpha (PGC-1α), and uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1). These results were further supported by immunofluorescence images of mitochondrial biogenesis. In addition, BG and Rb1 induced expressions of brown-adipocyte-specific marker proteins by AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activation. BG and Rb1 exert antiobesity effects by inducing browning in 3T3-L1 cells and PWATs through AMPK-mediated pathway activation. We suggest that BG and Rb1 act as potential functional antiobesity food agents.

Flavonoids and carotenoids are bioactive compounds that have protective effects against depressive symptoms. Flavonoids and carotenoids are the two main types of antioxidant phytochemicals. This study investigated the association between flavonoid and carotenoid intake and depressive symptoms in middle-aged Korean females. We analyzed the mechanism of these associations using an in silico method. Depressive symptoms were screened using the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), and flavonoid and carotenoid intake were assessed using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. Using a multivariate logistic regression model, we found that flavones, anthocyanins, individual phenolic compounds, lycopene, and zeaxanthin were negatively associated with depressive symptoms. In silico analysis showed that most flavonoids have high docking scores for monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and monoamine oxidase B (MAOB), which are two important drug targets in depression. The results of the docking of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and carotenoids suggested the possibility of allosteric activation of BDNF by carotenoids. These results suggest that dietary flavonoids and carotenoids can be utilized in the treatment of depressive symptoms.