JPH08275752A - Mental/physical stress-remedying food - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To obtain a food capable of mitigating light mental or physical stress by incorporating a food material containing at least glutathione with at least one kind of other antioxidant. CONSTITUTION: This food is obtained by incorporating (A) a food material containing at least glutathione with (B) at least one kind of other antioxidant. This food is effective for preventing or mitigating light stress unnecessary even for any medical therapy.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a food product for improving stress. More specifically, the present invention relates to a stress-improving food formed by using a composition in which glutathione contained in yeast or the like is used as an active ingredient, and this is combined with another antioxidant. By ingesting the food of the present invention on a daily basis, it is an effective food for preventing and relieving stress.

[0002]

[Prior Art] Today is a time of stress,
While the progress of civilization allows us to enjoy a spiritually and materially rich life, it creates various kinds of stress, and the various stresses surround the modern people with anxiety and frustration. Generally, stress is
According to Kojien, it is a functional change that occurs in the mind and body when various external stimuli work as a burden. Since human beings are engaged in high-level mental activities, they are vulnerable to psychological stress due to psychological factors, and in daily life, not only mental stress but also cold heat, noise, intense exercise and labor. , It is in an environment that is susceptible to many physical stresses such as ingestion and invasion of foreign substances. Also,
Stress also varies from person to person depending on gender and age. In any case, human stress is a mixture of physical stress and mental stress. According to a 1993 public opinion poll conducted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Information Liaison Office, 60% of modern people are feeling some stress, and 70% of working people are feeling stress.

As a treatment method for stress, anxiolytic drugs and hypnotics are mainly used as coping therapy for excessive mental fatigue caused by stress. Moreover, relaxation and aromatherapy are known as methods for controlling mental fatigue due to stress, but there is a large individual difference, and it is necessary to carry out continuously for a long time.

However, effective means for preventing or mitigating various stresses occurring in daily life, especially for mild mental and physical stresses that do not require medical treatment are not well known.

[0005]

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides an effective means for alleviating mild mental and physical stresses that do not require prevention and medical treatment against various stresses felt in daily life. To aim.

[0006]

[Means for Solving the Problems] As means for achieving the above object, the present inventors have focused on the fact that various stresses affect the molecules constituting the living body, and as a model of stress, they have Paying attention to the fact that gastric ulcer occurs and the production of lipid peroxide increases at the same time when stress of cold restraint for a time is applied, and by increasing the antioxidant capacity in vivo, lipid peroxide produced in vivo by stress is reduced. It has been found that it can be suppressed and stress can be prevented and relieved.

That is, the present invention provides a stress-improving food containing a food material containing at least anti-oxidant glutathione and a composition in which one or more kinds of other anti-oxidants are combined. However, by ingesting this, the antioxidant capacity in vivo is enhanced, and stress is prevented and alleviated. Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail.

The present invention is a stress-improving food containing a composition in which a food material containing at least glutathione and one or more kinds of other antioxidants are combined. The present invention, in the changes in the body caused by stress, in the production of lipid peroxide caused in the body as described above, the peroxidation reaction of this lipid, by taking the improved food of the present invention, It suppresses stress by antioxidants such as glutathione, which is enhanced in the body, to prevent and alleviate stress.

Glutathione, an active ingredient of the present invention, is a tripeptide of L-glutamic acid, L-cysteine, and glycine that is biosynthesized in vivo and is widely distributed in animal and plant tissues and microorganisms. It is a substance that is also contained in the above and is highly ingested, which is highly safe and is routinely ingested as one of the food ingredients.

Glutathione is contained in various food materials as described above, but is contained in a relatively large amount in vegetables,
The content of spinach is about 150 ppm. In addition, beef liver is a typical food that contains a lot of glutathione, but it has a problem that it contains a lot of cholesterol and has a taste. Therefore, it is advantageous to use yeast as a food material containing glutathione used in the present invention. Yeast is an excellent raw material. Above all, baker's yeast and torrula yeast contain a lot of glutathione. The glutathione used in the present invention is advantageously used in the form of yeast or yeast extract containing 1% or more of glutathione.

The physiological functions of glutathione include active oxygen scavenging system, glutathione peroxidase-mediated antioxidant system, glutathione-S-transferase-mediated conjugation detoxification, nutritional function of cysteine as a storage type and transport type, etc. And glutathione is multifunctionally involved in the biological defense mechanism.

There are reports on the biological defense mechanism of glutathione. For example, Capel et al. Reported that the amount of glutathione in the liver was reduced in rats subjected to cold stress (I. Capel et.al., J. Toxicol. Env.
iron.Health, 11 (1983) p.425). That is, in young rats, glutathione did not decrease, but glutathione decreased significantly with age. This is a lipid peroxidation reaction caused by stress,
It suggests that the antioxidant glutathione was consumed to suppress the reaction.

Boyd et al. Also reported that glutathione in rats under cold stress was reduced by 24% in the liver and 40% in the stomach, causing severe gastric ulcer in rats (S. Boyd et. Al. , Science, 205 (1979) p.1010).
Thus, stress causes a decrease in glutathione levels in living tissues.

Further, when a rat is subjected to water immersion restraint stress for several hours as a model of mental stress, gastric mucosal lesions occur, and at the same time, gastric mucosal TBA (thiobarbituric acid) -reactive substances that reflect the production increase. . It has been reported that lipid peroxidation occurs even at low temperature stress and noise stress (Nobuyuki Sakuma et al., Niseki, 37 (1982) p.42).
Five).

On the other hand, due to the importance of glutathione in the body, its nutritional significance is also being studied. Glutathione orally administered through animal experiments raises the concentration in serum, and thereby the glutathione concentration is increased. It has been reported that some tissues are rising (TYAw et.al.,
Chem-Biol, Interactions, 80 (1991) p.89; DP Jones e
t.al., Am.J.Physiol., 259 (1990) p.G530).

[0016] For example, with respect to stress-sensitive gastric ulcers, it has been reported that administration of glutathione intraperitoneally in rats before water immersion stress improves gastric mucosal lesions (H. Hirota et.al., Gastroenterology, 97 (1989) p.85
3).

As described above, glutathione is involved in the in vivo defense mechanism against stress. From these reports, it can be hypothesized that when a food containing glutathione is ingested, glutathione increases in the body and may be involved in improving the defense mechanism in the body.

When a person is stressed, the sympathetic nerves are excited and adrenaline is secreted. This hormone promotes increased membrane permeability, blood concentration and catabolism, and damages various cells and tissues. At the same time, adrenaline is the hypothalamus,
Then, the anterior pituitary gland is stimulated to secrete adrenocorticotropic hormone and further glucocorticoid from the adrenal cortex. Glucocorticoids and one of them, cortisol, act as defense mechanisms to alleviate the unfavorable conditions created by stress. It is considered that when the balance of these actions is lost, lipid peroxidation is promoted and tissue damage is caused.

In addition, humans have several types of defense mechanisms to protect themselves from active oxygen and free radicals that cause lipid peroxides. For example, in addition to in vivo enzymes such as superoxide desmutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase, antioxidants such as low molecular weight bilirubin, uric acid, glutathione, ubiquinone, vitamin E, vitamin C, and carotenoid can be mentioned.

This means that the defense mechanism by the in vivo antioxidant works to suppress the lipid peroxidation reaction caused by stress, and the inhibitory action is exerted. It means that the lesion due to progresses. Based on the above-mentioned hypothesis, the inventors of the present invention conducted experiments to be described later, that is, experiments in which glutathione alone and a composition in which glutathione and other antioxidants were combined were administered, and glutathione alone and glutathione and other antioxidants were used. It was confirmed that the composition comprising the combination of (1) and (2) enhances the in-vivo antioxidant ability, suppresses the lipid peroxidation reaction, improves the lesion caused by stress, and can prevent and alleviate stress.

Other antioxidants used in combination with the glutathione of the present invention include vitamin Es,
Examples thereof include vitamin C, β-carotene, astaxanthin, a mixture of carotenoids, catechins, flavonoids, gingerol, curcumin and the like. By using these antioxidants in combination with glutathione, a greater improvement effect on stress can be obtained. Among them, as shown in the experiments described later, vitamin E, vitamin C, and β-carotene can have a greater improvement effect.

The content of the food containing the composition obtained by combining the food material containing glutathione of the present invention and another antioxidant is
Glutathione is 5-100 mg, preferably 10-5.
0 mg, the effect is not sufficiently obtained below 5 mg,
No increase in the effect is observed even at 100 mg or more. Vitamin E is 5-10 mg, Vitamin C is 10-2000 m
g and β-carotene are 1 to 5 mg, and the effects are not sufficiently obtained in the respective usage ranges or less, and the effects are not increased in the above usage ranges.

Examples of foods containing the antioxidant of the present invention include liquid foods such as soft drinks, soups, cocoa, caramel, candy, gummi, biscuits, chocolates, tablets, gums, jellies, frozen desserts and solid foods. Can be mentioned. Any food form can be used. It is not particularly limited.

In the case of the candy described below, for example, in the case of the candy described below, the improved food of the present invention, that is, the food containing the antioxidant of the present invention is continuously ingested at 10 g per day to prevent and relieve stress. It is a thing.

How to improve the stress can be improved by eating the food with respect to the 16 items of the stress symptoms shown in Example 1 for a man and a woman who feel daily stress. This is an objective and statistically obtained result.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to Examples, but the present invention is not limited to such Examples.

[0027]

【Example】

1. Experimental method (a) Experimental animal Using a Wistar male rat weighing about 200 g,
The solid feed (Oriental Yeast Co., Ltd.) and water were freely taken. The rats were divided into 7 groups of administration test groups as shown in Table 1. (Number of rats per group, n = 6)

(B) Stress load and administration method After fasting for 24 hours, the rat was restrained in a metal gauge and subjected to cold restraint for 3 hours in a low temperature room (2 to 4 ° C.).
The administration was performed according to the dose shown in Table 1 by the following method. In Test Example 4 group to which fat-soluble antioxidants (vitamin E, β-carotene) were administered, 10 minutes before the cold restraint load, a solution dissolved in sesame oil was intraperitoneally injected into the rat. In the group to which the fat-soluble antioxidant was not administered, sesame oil alone was administered in the same amount. Subsequently, in Test Example 3 group to which water-soluble antioxidants (glutathione, vitamin C) were administered, 5 minutes before the cold restraint load, a solution dissolved in physiological saline was intraperitoneally administered to rats. In the group not administered with the water-soluble antioxidant, the same amount of physiological saline was administered at the same time.

(C) Evaluation method The stomach was excised after cold restraint for 3 hours, washed with physiological saline, and then the total length of the ulcer was produced using a stereoscopic microscope to obtain the ulcer index. The amount of thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) in the stomach wall was measured according to the method of Ohkawa et al. Using 10% homogenate with 1% KCl as a sample (Ohkawa et.al., Anal. Biochem., 95 (1979). p.35).

[0030]

[Table 1]

2. Experimental results The results are shown in Table 2. As shown in Table 2, in the test group to which the composition according to the present invention was administered, a significant stress-suppressing action was observed as compared with the comparative example group (hazard ratio 5 in t-test.
%Less than).

[0032]

[Table 2]

[Example 1] Hard candy having the composition shown in Table 3 was prepared and the effect on stress was evaluated.

[0034]

[Table 3]

<Test method> Volunteers feeling stressed daily, 30 men and women aged 30 to 60 were divided into 2 groups of 15 people, and 4 tablets (10 g) of candy each having the composition shown in Table 3 every day. Each had me eat for two weeks in a row. <Evaluation method> After having been eaten every day for 2 weeks, an interview was conducted with respect to the following symptoms that are likely to be caused by stress.
As shown in Table 4, the subject was asked to rate the degree of improvement in the evaluation, and the effect was evaluated based on the average score.

<< Symptom Items >> (a) Irritated (b) Insomnia (c) Headache (d) Gastric pain (e)
Cold (f) Vertigo (g) Stiff shoulder (h) Eye strain (i) Night sweats (j) Fatigue (k) Constipation tendency (l) Diarrhea tendency (m) Tinnitus (n) Appetite (o) Numbness (p) complexion

[0037]

[Table 4]

The above test results are shown in Table 5.
The test plot of the present invention had a significantly higher score than the control plot, and it was found that the present invention is effective for prevention and alleviation of stress.

[0039]

[Table 5]

As the stress-improving food of the present invention, soft drinks, potage soup and caramel [Examples 2 to 2]
4] was prepared. Similar to Example 1, these also showed excellent effects in improving stress.

Example 2 Soft drink water Yeast extract (containing oxidized glutathione) 4.0 g Water-soluble β-carotene 0.5 Vitamin E (emulsion type) 0.5 Cyclodextrin 0.5 Citric acid 3.5 Liquid sugar 130.0 Perfume 1.5 Water 859.5 Soft drink containing the above-mentioned composition was prepared. [Example 3] Potage soup Dry wheat flour 388.2 g Skim milk powder 239 Purified beef tallow 100 Dehydrated and dried sterilized starch 50 Yeast extract 40 Onion powder 50 Amiflex A-1 30 Anhydroglucose 30 Granulated sugar 20 Chicken powder 30 Purified salt 10 Chicken oil 10 White pepper 1.5 Vitamin E 1 turmeric 0.3 A potage soup containing the above composition was prepared. [Example 4] Caramel sugar 350 g starch syrup 350 condensed milk 250 butter 33 yeast extract 15 milk flavor 1 vitamin E 1 A caramel containing the above composition was prepared.

[0042]

The stress-improving food of the present invention, that is,
By ingesting a food containing a composition in which a food material containing glutathione such as yeast and other antioxidants are combined, mildness that does not require prevention and medical treatment for various stresses felt in daily life It has an excellent effect on the palliative treatment of mental and physical stress.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A stress-improving food comprising a composition in which a food material containing at least glutathione and one or more kinds of other antioxidants are combined. 2. The stress-improving food according to claim 1, wherein the food material containing glutathione is derived from yeast. 3. The antioxidant is vitamin C, vitamin E,
The stress-improving food according to claim 1, which is β-carotene. 4. The content of each composition in the food product is 5 to 100 mg of normal adult body weight / day, glutathione, 10 to 2000 mg of vitamin C, and 5 to 100 m of vitamin E.
g, β-carotene is contained within the range of 1 to 5 mg, and the stress-improving food according to claims 1 to 3.