Studies and Science

A short lit­tle col­lec­tion of every nut­meg study I can get my hands a hold of, pos­si­bly includ­ing spec­u­la­tion & lines of ques­tion­ing. Excuse the mess, this page is a work in progress.

Antidepressant-like activ­ity of n-hexane extract of nut­meg (Myris­tica fra­grans) seeds in mice.

Abstract

The present study was under­taken to inves­ti­gate the effect of an n-hexane extract of Myris­tica fra­grans seeds on depres­sion in mice by using the forced swim test (FST) and the tail sus­pen­sion test (TST). M. fra­grans extract (5, 10, and 20 mg/kg) was admin­is­tered orally for 3 suc­ces­sive days to dif­fer­ent groups of Swiss male young albino mice. M. fra­grans extract sig­nif­i­cantly decreased immo­bil­ity peri­ods of mice in both the FST and the TST. The 10 mg/kg dose was found to be most potent, as indi­cated by the great­est decrease in the immo­bil­ity period com­pared with the con­trol. Fur­ther­more, this dose of the extract was found to have com­pa­ra­ble potency to imipramine (15 mg/kg i.p.) and flu­ox­e­tine (20 mg/kg i.p.). The extract did not have a sig­nif­i­cant effect on loco­mo­tor activ­ity of mice. Pra­zosin (62.5 microg/kg i.p.; an alpha (1)-adrenoceptor antag­o­nist), sulpiride (50 mg/kg i.p.; a selec­tive D(2) recep­tor antag­o­nist), and p-chlorophenylalanine (100 mg/kg i.p.; an inhibitor of sero­tonin syn­the­sis) sig­nif­i­cantly atten­u­ated the M. fra­grans extract-induced antidepressant-like effect in the TST. Thus, extract of M. fra­grans elicited a sig­nif­i­cant antidepressant-like effect in mice, when assessed in both the TST and the FST. The antidepressant-like effect of the extract seems to be medi­ated by inter­ac­tion with the adren­er­gic, dopamin­er­gic, and sero­ton­er­gic systems.

Aphro­disiac activ­ity of 50% ethano­lic extracts of Myris­tica fra­grans Houtt. (nut­meg) and Syzy­gium aro­maticum (L) Merr. & Perry. (clove) in male mice: a com­par­a­tive study

Back­ground

Spices are con­sid­ered as sex­ual invig­o­ra­tors in the Unani Sys­tem of Med­i­cine. In order to explore the sex­ual func­tion improv­ing effect of Myris­tica fra­grans Houtt. (nut­meg) and Syzy­gium aro­maticum (L) Merr. & Perry. (clove) an exper­i­men­tal study was con­ducted in nor­mal male mice.

Meth­ods

The extracts (50% ethano­lic) of nut­meg and clove were admin­is­tered (500 mg/kg; p.o.) to dif­fer­ent groups of male Swiss mice. Mount­ing behav­iour, mat­ing per­for­mance, and gen­eral short term tox­i­c­ity of the test drugs were deter­mined and com­pared with the stan­dard drug Pene­gra (Silde­nafil citrate).

Results

The extracts of the nut­meg and clove were found to stim­u­late the mount­ing behav­iour of male mice, and also to sig­nif­i­cantly increase their mat­ing per­for­mance. The drugs were devoid of any con­spic­u­ous gen­eral short term toxicity.

Con­clu­sion

The extracts (50% ethano­lic) of nut­meg and clove enhanced the sex­ual behav­iour of male mice.

Ethnophar­ma­co­log­i­cal relevance

Nut­meg, the seeds of Myrit­ica fra­grans (fam­ily Myris­ti­caceae), is a well known kitchen spice with a long-standing rep­u­ta­tion as a psy­choac­tive herb. Nut­meg at high doses is con­sid­ered a cheap sub­sti­tute to sev­eral drugs of abuse. Ear­lier reports have attrib­uted amphetamine-like activ­i­ties to nutmeg.

Aim of the study

To char­ac­ter­ize the neu­rophar­ma­co­log­i­cal effects of dif­fer­ent nut­meg extracts, admin­is­tered orally and intraperi­toneally, in com­par­i­son to Δ⁹–ter­ahy­dro­cannabi­nol, amphet­a­mine, and morphine.

Mate­ri­als and methods

Methano­lic (ME), dichloromethane (DE), and hexane (HE) extracts were obtained from a chro­mato­graph­i­cally fin­ger­printed batch of nut­meg. Bio­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion was con­ducted in sets of 6–8 mice in the tetrad assay at doses rang­ing from 100–500 and 500‑1000 mg/kg for i.p. and oral admin­is­tra­tion, respectively.

Results

While oral admin­is­tra­tion of all the nut­meg extracts at 500 mg/kg caused a sig­nif­i­cant increase in loco­mo­tor activ­ity, the i.p. admin­is­tra­tion of DE showed sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in rec­tal tem­per­a­ture along with a sig­nif­i­cant increase in tail flick latency at 300 mg/kg. A sig­nif­i­cant decrease in core body tem­per­a­ture was observed with HE at 100 mg/kg, while higher doses caused sig­nif­i­cant increases in hot plate latency.

Con­clu­sion

Dif­fer­ent behav­ioral effects were observed that var­ied by the type of extract as well as by the route of administration.

New neolig­nan from seed of Myris­tica fragrans

OBJECTIVE: To study the chem­i­cal con­stituents in the nut­meg (seed of Myris­tica fra­grans). METHOD: The chem­i­cal con­stituents were iso­lated by var­i­ous col­umn chro­mato­graphic meth­ods and struc­turally elu­ci­dated by IR, NMR and MS evidences.

RESULT: Fif­teen com­pounds were obtained and iden­ti­fied as–

myris­ticin (1)

methyleugenol (2)

saf­role (3)

2, 3-dihydro-7-methoxy-2(3, 4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-3-methyl-5-(E) –propenyl-benzofuran (4),

dehy­drodi­isoeugenol (5)

2, 3-dihydro-7-methoxy-2-(3-methoxy-4, 5-methylenedioxyphenyl) –3-methyl-5-(E)-propenyl-benzofuran (6)

erythro-2-(4-allyl-2, 6-dimethoxyphenoxy)-1-(3, 4-dimetho– xyphenyl) propane (7)

erythro-2-(4-allyl-2, 6-dimethoxyphenoxy)-1-(3, 4, 5-trimethoxyphenyl) propane (8)

erythro-2-(4-allyl-2, 6-dimethoxyphenoxy)-1-(3, 4-dimethoxyphenyl) propan-1-ol acetate (9)

erythro-2-(4-allyl-2, 6-dimethoxyphenoxy)-1-(3, 4-dimethoxyphenyl) propan-1-ol (10)

erythro-2-(4-allyl-2, 6-dimethoxyphenoxy)-1-(3, 4, 5-trimethoxyphenyl) propan-1-ol (11),

5-methoxy-dehydrodiisoeugenol (12)

erythro-2-(4-allyl-2, 6-dimethoxyphenoxy)-1-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-propan-1-ol (13)

gua­iacin (14)

threo-2-(4-allyl-2, 6-dimethoxyphenoxy)-1-(3-methoxy-5-hydroxy-phenyl) propan-1-ol (15)

CONCLUSION: Com­pound 15 is a new com­pound and named myri­sisolig­nan. Com­pound 7 is iso­lated from the genus Myris­tica for the first time.

In vitro anti-biofilm activ­ity of macelig­nan iso­lated from Myris­tica fra­grans Houtt. against oral pri­mary col­o­nizer bacteria.

In early den­tal plaque for­ma­tion, oral pri­mary col­o­niz­ers such as
Strep­to­coc­cus mutans, Strep­to­coc­cus san­guis and Actin­o­myces vis­co­sus are
ini­tially attached to the pellicle-coated tooth sur­face to form a
biofilm. The study aimed to deter­mine the effi­cacy of macelig­nan,
iso­lated from nut­meg (Myris­tica fra­grans Houtt.), in remov­ing each
sin­gle oral pri­mary biofilm in vitro on a poly­styrene 96-well microtiter
plate. Four biofilm growth phases (4, 12, 20 and 24 h) were eval­u­ated
in this study after treat­ment with macelig­nan at var­i­ous con­cen­tra­tions
(0.2, 2 and 10 microg/mL) and expo­sure times (5, 10 and 30 min).
Anti-biofilm activ­ity of macelig­nan was mea­sured as the per­cent­age of
the remain­ing biofilm absorbance after macelig­nan treat­ment in
com­par­i­son with the untreated con­trol. At 24 h of biofilm growth, S.
mutans, A. vis­co­sus and S. san­guis biofilms were reduced by up to 30%,
30% and 38%, respec­tively, after treat­ment with 10 microg/mL macelig­nan
for 5 min. Increas­ing the treat­ment time to 30 min resulted in a
reduc­tion of more than 50% of each of the sin­gle pri­mary biofilms. The
results indi­cate that macelig­nan is a potent nat­ural anti-biofilm agent
against oral pri­mary colonizers.

Hepato­pro­tec­tive effect of myris­ticin from nut­meg (Myris­tica fra­grans)
on lipopolysaccharide/d-galactosamine-induced liver injury

To eval­u­ate the hepato­pro­tec­tive activ­ity of spices, 21 dif­fer­ent spices
were fed to rats with liver dam­age caused by lipopolysac­cha­ride (LPS)
plus d-galactosamine (D-GalN). As assessed by plasma amino­tran­ferase
activ­i­ties, nut­meg showed the most potent hepato­pro­tec­tive activ­ity.
Bioassay-guided iso­la­tion of the active com­pound from nut­meg was car­ried
out in mice by a sin­gle oral admin­is­tra­tion of the respec­tive
frac­tions. Myris­ticin, one of the major essen­tial oils of nut­meg, was
found to pos­sess extra­or­di­nar­ily potent hepato­pro­tec­tive activ­ity.
Myris­ticin markedly sup­pressed LPS/D-GalN-induced enhance­ment of serum
TNF-alpha con­cen­tra­tions and hepatic DNA frag­men­ta­tion in mice. These
find­ings sug­gest that the hepato­pro­tec­tive activ­ity of myris­ticin might
be, at least in part, due to the inhi­bi­tion of TNF-alpha release from
macrophages. How­ever, fur­ther stud­ies are needed to elu­ci­date the
hepato­pro­tec­tive mechanism(s) of myristicin.

Myristicin-induced neu­ro­tox­i­c­ity in human neu­rob­las­toma SK-N-SH cells

Myris­ticin, 1-allyl-3,4-methylenedioxy-5-methoxybenzene, is a nat­u­rally
occur­ring alkenyl­ben­zene com­pound found in the nut­meg. The present study
was con­ducted to assess the cyto­toxic and apop­totic effects of
myris­ticin on the human neu­rob­las­toma SK-N-SH cells. We found that a
dose-dependent reduc­tion in cell via­bil­ity occurs at myris­ticin
con­cen­tra­tion > or =0.5 mM in SK-N-SH cells. Apop­totic cell death was
con­firmed using DNA frag­men­ta­tion, ter­mi­nal deoxyri­bonucelotidyl
transferase-mediated dUTP nick end label­ing and by
4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole stain­ing. Microscopy was used to observe
apop­totic cell mor­phol­ogy. West­ern blot­ting was used to inves­ti­gate the
pro­tein expres­sion of known apop­totic medi­a­tors includ­ing cytochrome c,
caspase-3, and PARP. The apop­to­sis trig­gered by myris­ticin was
accom­pa­nied by an accu­mu­la­tion of cytochrome c and by the acti­va­tion of
caspase-3. The results obtained sug­gest that myris­ticin induces
cyto­tox­i­c­ity in human neu­rob­las­toma SK-N-SH cells by an apop­totic
mech­a­nism. This myristicin-induced apop­to­sis pro­vides fur­ther insight of
the mol­e­c­u­lar mech­a­nisms of myris­ticin toxicity.

Nut­meg intox­i­ca­tion in Texas, 1998–2004

Nut­meg is a spice that con­tains volatile oils com­prised of alkyl ben­zene
deriv­a­tives (myris­ticin, elemicin, saf­role, etc.), ter­penes and
myris­tic acid. Nut­meg has a long his­tory of abuse. This study describes
the nut­meg inges­tion calls received by Texas poi­son cen­ters from 1998 to
2004. There were 17 calls involv­ing nut­meg inges­tion, of which 64.7%
involved inten­tional abuse. When abuse and non-abuse inges­tions were
com­pared, abuse inges­tions were more likely to involve males (100 ver­sus
66.7%) and ado­les­cents (55.6 ver­sus 16.7%). The major­ity of both abuse
and non-abuse calls were man­aged out­side of health care facil­i­ties (54.5
and 66.7%, respec­tively). None of the inges­tions resulted in more than
mod­er­ate clin­i­cal effects or death

Pro­tec­tive capac­i­ties of cer­tain spices against peroxynitrite-mediated bio­mol­e­c­u­lar damage.

Per­ox­yni­trite, a potent cyto­toxic agent, can dam­age a vari­ety of
bio­mol­e­cules such as pro­teins, lipids, and DNA, and is con­sid­ered as one
of the major patho­log­i­cal causes of sev­eral dis­eases. There­fore, it
would appear likely that inter­cep­tion of per­ox­yni­trite by cer­tain
dietary com­pounds may rep­re­sent one mech­a­nism by which such foods may
exert their ben­e­fi­cial action in vivo. A num­ber of researchers have
spec­u­lated that cer­tain spices, rich in phe­no­lics, may, con­ceiv­ably, act
as poten­tial pro­tec­tors against the actions of per­ox­yni­trite. Eight
culi­nary spices includ­ing car­damom, cin­na­mon, cloves, cumin, nut­meg,
paprika, rose­mary and turmeric were selected for study pur­poses.
Fur­ther, the pro­tec­tive effects of methanol extracts of such spices
against peroxynitrite-mediated dam­age to pro­teins, lipids and DNA were
eval­u­ated as deter­mined by these extracts’ abil­ity to atten­u­ate the
for­ma­tion of, respec­tively, nitroty­ro­sine in albu­min, thio­bar­bi­tu­rate
acid-reactive sub­stances (TBARS) in lipo­some and strand break­ages for
plas­mid DNA. All of the tested spices exerted some level of pro­tec­tive
abil­ity against peroxynitrite-mediated bio­mol­e­c­u­lar dam­age. Amongst
them, cloves deserve spe­cial atten­tion due to their out­stand­ing
pro­tec­tive abil­i­ties against two of three forms of
peroxynitrite-mediated bio­mol­e­c­u­lar dam­age. Addi­tion­ally, the phe­no­lic
con­tent of cer­tain spices appears to cor­re­late well with such spices’
pro­tec­tive effect against peroxynitrite-mediated tyro­sine nitra­tion and
lipid per­ox­i­da­tion. Such an obser­va­tion indi­cates that phe­no­lics present
in the spices con­tributed to such spice-elicited pro­tec­tion against
per­ox­yni­trite toxicity.

Effect of volatile oil from nut­meg on liver micro­so­mal cytochrome P450 in mice

OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of the volatile oil from nut­meg on liver
micro­so­mal cytochrome P450 in mice. METHOD: Mice were admin­is­tered the
volatile oil from nut­meg at 0.4, 0.8 and 1.2 mg x g(-1), respec­tively,
twice a day for 10 days. And then, the con­tents of liver micro­so­mal
cytochrome P450 (CYP), cytochrome b5 (Cytb5), MDA and GST in serum were
exam­ined by UV chro­matog­ra­phy method. RESULT: The con­tents of liver CYP,
Cytb5 and GST in serum were increased sig­nif­i­cantly (P < 0.01) and
the con­tents of MDA was reduced sig­nif­i­cantly (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION:
The volatile oil from nut­meg showed induc­tion effect on the hepatic
micro­so­mal CYP in mice.

Immunomod­u­la­tory and radio­pro­tec­tive effects of lig­nans derived from fresh nut­meg mace (Myris­tica fra­grans) in mam­malian splenocytes.

Recently, the lig­nans present in the aque­ous extract of fresh nut­meg mace (aril of the fruit of Myris­tica fra­grans) were shown to pos­sess antiox­i­dant prop­er­ties in cell free sys­tems and pro­tected PUC18 plas­mid against radiation-induced DNA dam­age. The present report describes the immunomod­u­la­tory and radiomod­i­fy­ing prop­er­ties of lig­nans present in the aque­ous extract of fresh nut­meg mace in mam­malian spleno­cytes. These macelig­nans (ML) inhib­ited the pro­lif­er­a­tion of spleno­cytes in response to poly­clonal T cell mito­gen con­canavalin A (Con A). This inhi­bi­tion of pro­lif­er­a­tion was due to cell cycle arrest in G1 phase and aug­men­ta­tion of apop­to­sis as shown by increase in pre G1 cells. The increase in acti­va­tion induced cell death by ML was dose depen­dent. It was found to inhibit the tran­scrip­tion of IL-2 and IL-4 genes in response to Con A. The pro­duc­tion of IL-2, IL-4 and IFN-γ cytokines was sig­nif­i­cantly inhib­ited by ML in Con A-stimulated lym­pho­cytes in a dose depen­dent man­ner. ML pro­tected spleno­cytes against radiation-induced intra­cel­lu­lar ROS pro­duc­tion in a dose depen­dent man­ner. ML was not cyto­toxic towards lym­pho­cytes. On the con­trary, it sig­nif­i­cantly inhib­ited the radiation-induced DNA dam­age in spleno­cytes as indi­cated by decrease in DNA frag­men­ta­tion. To our knowl­edge, this is the first report show­ing the antiox­i­dant, radio­pro­tec­tive and immunomod­u­la­tory effects of lig­nans in mam­malian cells.

The phar­ma­co­log­i­cal effects of the ligroin extract of nut­meg (Myris­tica fragrans)

A ligroin extract of nut­meg (Myris­tica fra­grans) caused a sig­nif­i­cant
increase in the dura­tion of light and deep sleep in the young chicken.
The pres­ence of trimyristin tended to increase the effect of the
extract. The extract did not con­tain detectable amounts of myris­ticin,
elemicin, saf­role, or eugenol, which either indi­vid­u­ally or col­lec­tively
have been sug­gested to be the active agent of nutmeg

Anti­car­i­o­genic activ­ity of macelig­nan iso­lated from Myris­tica fra­grans (nut­meg) against Strep­to­coc­cus mutans

The occur­rence of den­tal caries is mainly asso­ci­ated with oral
pathogens, espe­cially car­i­o­genic Strep­to­coc­cus mutans. Pre­lim­i­nary
antibac­te­r­ial screen­ing revealed that the extract of Myris­tica fra­grans,
widely cul­ti­vated for the spice and fla­vor of foods, pos­sessed strong
inhibitory activ­ity against S. mutans. The anti­car­i­o­genic com­pound was
suc­cess­fully iso­lated from the methanol extract of M. fra­grans by
repeated sil­ica gel chro­matog­ra­phy, and its struc­ture was iden­ti­fied as
macelig­nan by instru­men­tal analy­sis using 1D-NMR, 2D-NMR and EI-MS. The
min­i­mum inhibitory con­cen­tra­tion (MIC) of macelig­nan against S. mutans
was 3.9 microg/ml, which was much lower than those of other nat­ural
anti­car­i­o­genic agents such as 15.6 microg/ml of san­guinar­ine, 250
microg/ml of euca­lyp­tol, 500 microg/ml of men­thol and thy­mol, and 1000
microg/ml of methyl sal­i­cy­late. Macelig­nan also pos­sessed pref­er­en­tial
activ­ity against other oral microor­gan­isms such as Strep­to­coc­cus
sobri­nus, Strep­to­coc­cus sali­var­ius, Strep­to­coc­cus san­guis, Lac­to­bacil­lus
aci­dophilus and Lac­to­bacil­lus casei in the MIC range of 2–31.3
microg/ml. In par­tic­u­lar, the bac­te­ri­ci­dal test showed that macelig­nan,
at a con­cen­tra­tion of 20 microg/ml, com­pletely inac­ti­vated S. mutans in 1
min. The spe­cific activ­ity and fast-effectiveness of macelig­nan against
oral bac­te­ria strongly sug­gest that it could be employed as a nat­ural
antibac­te­r­ial agent in func­tional foods or oral care products

Effect of gamma-irradiation on the lipid pro­file of nut­meg (Myris­tica fra­grans Houtt.)

The effect of gamma-irradiation on the lipid con­stituents of nut­meg
(Myris­tica fra­grans) was exam­ined at radi­a­tion doses between 2.5 and 10
kGy. The fatty acid com­po­si­tion of the tri­a­cyl­glyc­erol, the major lipid
com­po­nent, was found to be made up of myris­tic (90%), palmitic (6%),
lau­ric (3%), pet­roselinic (0.13%), and stearic acids (0.5%) as
deter­mined by gas chromatography-mass spec­trom­e­try. A dose-dependent
decrease in the tri­a­cyl­glyc­erol con­tent and a con­comi­tant increase in
free fatty acids char­ac­ter­ized the lipid pro­file of the irra­di­ated
spice. This sug­gested a break­down of acyl­glyc­erols dur­ing radi­a­tion
pro­cess­ing, result­ing in the release of free fatty acids. These changes
were found to be sig­nif­i­cant at doses above 5 kGy. The impact of the
above changes on the fla­vor of the spice is dis­cussed. These stud­ies
sug­gest that radi­a­tion pro­cess­ing of nut­meg should be lim­ited to a dose
of 5 kGy.

STUDIES THAT I NEED

The world of sci­ence in our world here on Earth in the year 2011, early on in April, is not quite what it seems. The entire insti­tu­tion of sci­ence, med­i­cine, tech­nol­ogy, edu­ca­tion, and pro­dux­tion is cen­tered soley around the ful­crum of greed and mas­sive prof­its for a small group of peo­ple. Whether or not this group of peo­ple is a highly orga­nized, intel­li­gent group of loosely asso­ci­ated cells of peo­ple of a like minded inter­est that is actively col­lab­o­rat­ing in a mas­sive con­spir­acy is com­pletely irrel­e­vant. What is com­pletely rel­e­vant is the fact that we, the peo­ple that feel the effects this con­spir­acy must band together to make the world bet­ter for our­selves. There are routes of action that we can take that are both pro­duc­tive & sub­ver­sive to the gen­eral sys­tem at large, and since this con­spir­acy goes far wider than any one gov­ern­ment or body poli­tik there is no rea­son to get caught up in petty ter­res­trial biases. The sim­ple fact is that there is a war, and it is between Dark­ness and Knowledge.

Knowl­edge should be free, and avail­able to any­one that requests it.

Knowl­edge is never dan­ger­ous, only the peo­ple that mis­use knowledge.

Knowl­edge can always be expanded upon, and is always incomplete.

Knowl­edge is the key to the gate­way of immortality.

To know is to be.

With that said, I’m kindly request­ing any­one at all, from the orig­i­nal authors to ran­dom Atlanteans or the head of the CIA or even the ghost of Albert Hoff­man, the full texts of these requested articles:

J Chem Soc Perkin 1. 1974;2:205–9.

Diaryl­propanoids from nut­meg and mace (Myris­tica fra­grans Houtt.).

For­rest JE, Hea­cock RA, For­rest TP.

PMID: 4856212

J Chro­matogr. 1974 Feb 13;89(1):113–7.

A chro­mato­graphic com­par­i­son of the con­stituents of nut­meg and mace (Myris­tica fra­grans Houtt.) with those of mar­i­huana and hashish (Cannabis sativa L.).

For­rest JE, Hea­cock RA.

PMID: 4361171

Lloy­dia. 1972 Dec;35(4):440–9.

Nut­meg and mace, the psy­chotropic spices from Myris­tica fragrans.

For­rest JE, Hea­cock RA.

PMID: 4581623