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Background: Despite the increasing importance of memory impairment in menopause, the current therapy against memory impairment in menopause is still limited. Therefore, the novel memory enhancer for menopause is required. Based on the crucial roles of oxidative stress and cholinergic function on memory and the synergistic concept, the memory enhancing effect of the polyherbal chicken soup which contains many herbs possessing antioxidant effect has gained attention. However, no supported evidence is available until now .
Objective: To assess the memory enhancing effect of the polyherbal chicken soup (WO1) and to determine the possible underlying mechanism in animal model of menopause.
Materials and Methods: Female Wistar rats were divided in to 6 groups i) sham plus vehicle ii) OVX plus vehicle iii) OVX plus isoflavone iv)-vi) OVX plus WO1 at doses of 0.8, 1.6 and 2.4 mg.kg-1 respectively. All rats were treated with the assigned substance for 35 days and memory assessment was performed every 7 days throughout the study period. Then, they were determined malondialdehyde (MDA) level together with the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) in hippocampus at the end of experiment.
Results: All doses of WO1 improved memory and decreased both AChE activity and MDA level in hippocampus of OVX rats. The enhanced SOD activity was observed in all WO1 treatment groups but the increased CAT and GPX activities were observed only in high dose treatment group.
Conclusion: WO1 can improve memory in experimental menopause. The mechanism may occur partly via the improvement of cholinergic function and oxidative status in hippocampus. Our data suggest that WO1 is the potential functional food targeting at memory enhancement for menopausal women. However, clinical study is still essential to confirm aforementioned health benefit.
Key words: Polyherbal chicken soup; memory enhancing effect, oxidative stress, ovariectomized rat,