Nutritional Value of Date Fruits and Potential Use in Nutritional Bars for Athletes

The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is one of the oldest primary staple crops in Southwest Asia and North Africa. Date palms are also grown in Australia, Mexico, South America, Southern Africa, and the United States, especially in Southern California, Arizona, and Texas. Date fruit is a high nutritional value food that is rich in carbohydrates, dietary fibers, proteins, minerals and vitamin B complex such as thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pantothenic (B5), pyridoxine (B6), and folate (B9). Carbohydrates comprise 70% of date fruit mainly as fructose and glucose. Minerals in date fruits are calcium, iron, magnesium, selenium, copper, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, sulfur, cobalt, fluorine, and manganese. Date fruits are highly nourishing and may thus confer numerous potential health benefits. In recent years, a huge interest in the abundant health promoting properties of date fruits has led to the need to develop new food products using dates as a source of nutrients. Thus, the aim of this paper is to review the nutritional value of date fruits in the context of the potential use of dates in nutrition bars for athletes.

Red Yeast Rice Increases Excretion of Bile Acids in Hamsters

Objective To investigate the hypocholesterolemic activity of red yeast rice （RYR） and its underlying mechanism. Methods Three groups of hamsters were fed either the control diet or one of the two experimental diets containing by weight 0.1% RYR （0.1RYR） or 0.3% RYR （0.3RYR）. Blood （0.5 mL） was collected from the retro-orbital sinus into a heparinized capillary tube at the end of week 0, 3, and 6. Plasma lipoproteins were measured using enzymatic kits, while fecal neutral and acidic sterols were quantified using a gas-liquid chromatography. Results Plasma total cholesterol was reduced by 12% in 0.1RYR group and by 18% in 0.3RYR group compared with the control value. Similarly, plasma triacylglycerol was decreased by 11% in 0.1RYR group and by 24% in 0.3RYR group. Western blotting analysis demonstrated that RYR had no effect on sterol regulatory element binding protein 2, fiver X receptor, 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutary-CoA reductase, LDL receptor, and cholesterol-7α-hydroxylase. HPLC analysis confirmed that RYR contained 0.88% monacolin K. It was recently found that RYR supplementation increased excretion of fecal acidic sterols by 34 folds compared with the conlrol value. Conclusion Hypocholesterolemic activity of RYR is mediated at least partially by enhancement of acidic sterol excretion.