Indian Journal of Biology

Mushrooms are a wholesome food that provide ample amount of nutrients including essential amino acids, ions, minerals and vitamins to humans and can be used to compensate for the lack of nutrition and eradicating many health related problems especially malnutrition. Mushrooms also contain secondary metabolites (bioactive compounds) having role in regulating the body’s immune system. With China being the largest producer of mushroom, other countries too are coming together and mushroom production and trade are growing globally. Mushroom farming is easy, feasible, less time consuming and returns good profit margins. The agro waste left after the harvesting can be biodegraded or recycled if they can be used for mushroom cultivation thus, don’t need to be burned. Mushrooms have been nutritionally beneficial to humans for ages by providing many essential nutrients and have been used as medicines by the people of China and Japan. Many other countries and folk people utilized mushrooms as local medicines to treat many diseases and wounds topically. Their value has been recognized and is being exploited in modern medicine as many studies have shown successful results upon animal models and few on human patients. Folklore studies can help rediscover properties and make advancements in molecular medicines and clinical therapies. Current studies indicate that mushroom bioactive compounds regulate the immune system by eliciting immune responses or by interacting with the gut microbiota. Mushrooms also possess properties like anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, antiinflammatory, anti-obesity and anti-neurodegenerative. Although these properties are presently being used for clinical therapies and treatment of various diseases, still there is a dire need for more experiments on the mushrooms and their extracts. This review aims to consolidate understanding of the medicinal and nutritional benefits of mushrooms including nutritional components, bioactive components, mention in folk literature and role today in clinical therapies. Keywords: Agro industry; Edible fungi; Ethnomycology; Malnutrition; Mushrooms; Medicinal effects; Nutritional benefits.

About 95% of the honey dry matter is composed of carbohydrates, mainly fructose and glucose. 5 to 10% of the total carbohydrates are oligosaccharides, in total about 25 different di and trisaccharides. The Glycemic Index of honey varies from 32 to 85, depending on the botanical source which is lower than sucrose (60 to 110). Fructose rich honeys such as acasia honey have a low GI. Honey contains small amounts of protein, enzymes, amino acids, minerals, trace elements, vitamins, aroma compounds and polyphenols. Honey has been shown to process anti microbial, antiviral, antiparasitory, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antimutagenic and antitumor effects. Due to its high carbohydrate content and functional properties honey is an excellent source of energy for athletes. Most of the health promoting properties of honey is only achieved by application of rather high doses of honey such as 50 to 80 grams per intake. Keywords: Honey; Human Diseases; Traditional; Modern Medicines..

Foraging behavior is one of the distinctive behaviours of honey bees, Apis cerana indica. This behaviour is the link between the honey bee colony and the ambient environment. Therefore, various in colony and out-colony factors have an impact on this behaviour. Foraging behavior is not advantageous only for the colony and for plant pollination but also has other benefits. In contrast, some disadvantages have also been discovered to be linked with foraging activity. This paper presents a review on foraging activity including; the regulation of foraging tasks, factors impacting this behaviour, foraging preference, variations between subspecies, monitoring methods as well as the possible methods for controlling this behaviour. Keywords: Colonies; Apis Cerana Indica; Flying; Workers; Ethology.

Wound healing implicates several biological and molecular events, such as coagulation, inflammation, migration-proliferation, and remodeling. Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a popular Indian spice that has been used for centuries in herbal medicines for the treatment of a variety of ailments such as rheumatism, diabetic ulcers, anorexia, cough and sinusitis. Curcumin has been shown to possess significant anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-carcinogenic, anti-mutagenic, anticoagulant and anti-infective effects. Curcumin has also been shown to have significant wound healing properties. It acts on various stages of the natural wound healing process to hasten healing. Keywords: Curcumin, wound healing..

The pathophysiological conditions of organisms can be revealed by the study of haematological profile. Three breeds of dairy cows of 02-07 years age groups namely, non-descriptive(ND), Red Sindhi (RS) and crossbred Jersey (CBJ) cows, were used in this study. From each breed nine cows were taken. The aim of the present study was to investigate comparative analyses of haematological profile of different breeds of dairy cows of Odisha which is useful to provide a baseline data for comparison with other breeds of cows. For Hb and PCV highly significant difference (p<0.01) was there among the three breeds of cows. For TRBC, MCV and MCH no significant difference was there among three breeds. For MCHC highly significant difference (p<0.01) is there between ND and CBJ cows and between RS and CBJ cows. For WBC significant difference (p<0.05) was there between ND and RS cows. For lymphocyte, neutrophil and basophil no significant difference is there among the different breeds of cows. For monocyte highly significant difference (p<0.01) is there among the three breeds of cows. For eosinophil highly significant difference (p<0.01) was there between ND and CBJ cows and between RS and CBJ cows. Keywords: ND, RS, CBJ, cows.