Spirulina platensis en el tratamiento de la obesidad y de algunas de sus consecuencias / Spirulina platensis in the Treatment of Obesity and some of its Consequences

Introducción: La Spirulina platensis constituye un sustancial reservorio de nutrientes y de alimentos funcionales con un bajo contenido de calorías. Aunque en la literatura se mencionan varias cualidades benéficas, una de ellas es aumentar la sensación de saciedad, lo que abre la posibilidad de ser empleada en la prevención y tratamiento de la obesidad y de algunas de sus consecuencias. Objetivo: Describir el papel de la Spirulina platensis en el tratamiento de la obesidad y de algunas de sus consecuencias. Métodos: Se realizó una búsqueda de literatura relevante sobre el tema en el primer cuatrimestre de 2020. Se utilizaron como buscadores de información científica: Pubmed, Scielo, Google y Google Académico. La estrategia de búsqueda incluyó los siguientes términos como palabras clave: Espirulina; Spirulina platensis; Obesidad; Exceso de peso. Se evaluaron artículos de revisión, de investigación y páginas Web que, en general, tenían menos de 10 años de publicados, en idioma español, portugués e inglés, y que hicieran referencia específicamente al tema de estudio a través del título. Fueron excluidos los artículos que no cumplieron con estas condiciones. Esto permitió el estudio de 75 referencias bibliográficas, de las cuales 51 se citaron en el presente artículo. Conclusiones: La Spirulina platensis representa una opción como suplemento nutraceútico y funcional, con valor preventivo y coadyuvante en el tratamiento de la obesidad y de algunas de sus consecuencias, al menos a corto plazo(AU)

Introduction: Spirulina platensis is a substantial reservoir of functional foods and nutrients with low calorie content. Although several beneficial qualities are mentioned in the scientific literature, one of them is to increase the feeling of satiety, which opens the possibility of being used for preventing and treating obesity, as well as some of its consequences. Objective: To describe the role of Spirulina platensis for treating obesity and some of its consequences. Methods: A search of relevant literature on the subject was carried out in the first four months of 2020. The following scientific information search engines were used: Pubmed, Scielo, Google and Google Scholar. The search strategy included the following terms as keywords: espirulina [spirulina], Spirulina platensis, obesidad [obesity], exceso de peso [overweight]. Review articles, research articles and Web pages were assessed, which, in general, had been published within less than ten years, in Spanish, Portuguese and English, and which made specific reference to the study topic through their titles. Articles that did not meet these conditions were excluded. This allowed the study of 75 bibliographic references, of which 51 were cited in this article. Conclusions: Spirulina platensis is an option as a nutraceutical and functional supplement, with preventive and coadjutant value for the treatment of obesity and some of its consequences, at least in the short term(AU)

Mixotrophic cultivation of Spirulina platensis in dairy wastewater: Effects on the production of biomass, biochemical composition and antioxidant capacity.

Mixotrophic cultivation of microalgae provides a very promising alternative for producing carbohydrate-rich biomass to convert into bioethanol and value-added biocompounds, such as vitamins, pigments, proteins, lipids and antioxidant compounds. Spirulina platensis may present high yields of biomass and carbohydrates when it is grown under mixotrophic conditions using cheese whey. However, there are no previous studies evaluating the influence of this culture system on the profile of fatty acids or antioxidant compounds of this species, which are extremely important for food and pharmaceutical applications and would add value to the cultivation process. S. platensis presented higher specific growth rates, biomass productivity and carbohydrate content under mixotrophic conditions; however, the antioxidant capacity and the protein and lipid content were lower than that of the autotrophic culture. The maximum biomass yield was 2.98 ±0.07 g/L in growth medium with 5.0% whey. The phenolic compound concentration was the same for the biomass obtained under autotrophic and mixotrophic conditions with 2.5% and 5.0% whey. The phenolic compound concentrations showed no significant differences except for that in the growth medium with 10.0% whey, which presented an average value of 22.37±0.14 mg gallic acid/g. Mixotrophic cultivation of S. platensis using whey can be considered a viable alternative to reduce the costs of producing S. platensis biomass and carbohydrates, shorten cultivation time and produce carbohydrates, as it does not require adding expensive chemical nutrients to the growth medium and also takes advantage of cheese whey, an adverse dairy industry byproduct.

Enhancement of the carbohydrate content in Spirulina by applying CO2, thermoelectric fly ashes and reduced nitrogen supply.

This study focused on evaluating whether the injection of CO2, which is associated with the use of thermoelectric fly ashes and a reduced supply of nitrogen, affects the production of intracellular carbohydrates from Spirulina. For this purpose, the addition of 0.25 g L-1 of NaNO3, along with a 10% (v v-1) of CO2 injection, a flow rate of 0.3 vvm for 1 or 5 min, as well as 0, 120 and 160 ppm of fly ashes, was studied. The assays with 120 ppm of fly ashes presented the best kinetic parameters and CO2 biofixation rate, regardless of the CO2 injection time. Meanwhile, the experiments with 120 and 160 ppm of fly ash and CO2 injection for 1 min presented 63.3 and 61.0% (w w-1) of carbohydrates, respectively. Thus, this study represents an important strategy to increase the accumulation of carbohydrates in Spirulina, with potential application in the production of bioethanol.

Neuroprotective Activities of Spirulina platensis in the 6-OHDA Model of Parkinson's Disease Are Related to Its Anti-Inflammatory Effects.

Spirulina platensis (SPI) is a cyanobacterium, presenting anti-inflammatory and antioxidant actions. Considering the importance of inflammation and oxidative stress in Parkinson's disease (PD), SPI neuroprotective effects were evaluated in a model of PD. Male Wistar rats were divided into: sham-operated (SO), untreated 6-OHDA and 6-OHDA treated with SPI (25 and 50 mg/kg, p.o.). The 6-OHDA was injected into the right striata and SPI treatments started 24 h later for 2 weeks. The SO and untreated 6-OHDA-lesioned groups were administered with distilled water, for the same period. Afterwards, the animals were subjected to the apomorphine-induced rotational test and euthanized for striatal measurements of DA and DOPAC, nitrite and TBARS and immunohistochemistry assays for TH, DAT, iNOS and COX-2. SPI reduced the apomorphine-induced rotational behavior, DA and DOPAC depletions and nitrite and TBARS increases, at its high dose. Furthermore, TH and DAT immunoreactivities in the lesioned striatum of the untreated 6-OHDA-lesioned group were attenuated by SPI. Similarly, immunoreactivities for iNOS and COX-2 were also decreased after SPI treatments. In conclusion, we showed that behavioral and neurochemical alterations in hemiparkinsonian rats were partly reversed by SPI, characterizing the neuroprotective potential of Spirulina and stimulating translational studies focusing on its use as an alternative treatment for PD.

Chemical absorption and CO2 biofixation via the cultivation of Spirulina in semicontinuous mode with nutrient recycle.

The chemical absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2) is a technique used for the mitigation of the greenhouse effect. However, this process consumes high amounts of energy to regenerate the absorbent and to separate the CO2. CO2 removal by microalgae can be obtained via the photosynthesis process. The objective of this study was to investigate the cultivation and the macromolecules production by Spirulina sp. LEB 18 with the addition of monoethanolamine (MEA) and CO2. In the cultivation with MEA, were obtained higher results of specific growth rate, biomass productivity, CO2 biofixation, CO2 use efficiency, and lower generation time. Besides this, the carbohydrate concentration obtained at the end of this assay was approximately 96.0% higher than the control assay. Therefore, Spirulina can be produced using medium recycle and the addition of MEA, thereby promoting the reduction of CO2 emissions and showing potential for areas that require higher concentrations of carbohydrates, such as in bioethanol production.

Influence of ammonium sulphate feeding time on fed-batch Arthrospira (Spirulina) platensis cultivation and biomass composition with and without pH control.

Previous work demonstrated that a mixture of NH(4)Cl and KNO(3) as nitrogen source was beneficial to fed-batch Arthrospira (Spirulina) platensis cultivation, in terms of either lower costs or higher cell concentration. On the basis of those results, this study focused on the use of a cheaper nitrogen source mixture, namely (NH(4))(2)SO(4) plus NaNO(3), varying the ammonium feeding time (T=7-15 days), either controlling the pH by CO(2) addition or not. A. platensis was cultivated in mini-tanks at 30°C, 156 µmol photons m(-2) s(-1), and starting cell concentration of 400 mg L(-1), on a modified Schlösser medium. T=13 days under pH control were selected as optimum conditions, ensuring the best results in terms of biomass production (maximum cell concentration of 2911 mg L(-1), cell productivity of 179 mg L(-1)d(-1) and specific growth rate of 0.77 d(-1)) and satisfactory protein and lipid contents (around 30% each).

Fed-batch cultivation of Arthrospira (Spirulina) platensis: potassium nitrate and ammonium chloride as simultaneous nitrogen sources.

Arthrospiraplatensis was cultivated in minitanks at 13 klux, using a mixture of KNO(3) and NH(4)Cl as nitrogen source. Fed-batch daily supply of NH(4)Cl at exponentially-increasing feeding rate allowed preventing ammonia toxicity and nitrogen deficiency, providing high maximum cell concentration (X(m)) and high-quality biomass (21.85 mg chlorophyll g cells(-1); 20.5% lipids; 49.8% proteins). A central composite design combined to response surface methodology was utilized to determine the relationships between responses (X(m), cell productivity and nitrogen-to-cell conversion factor) and independent variables (KNO(3) and NH(4)Cl concentrations). Under optimum conditions (15.5mM KNO(3); 14.1mM NH(4)Cl), X(m) was 4327 mg L(-1), a value almost coincident with that obtained with only 25.4mM KNO(3), but more than twice that obtained with 21.5mM NH(4)Cl. A 30%-reduction of culture medium cost can be estimated when compared to KNO(3)-batch runs, thus behaving as a cheap alternative for the commercial production of this cyanobacterium.