The Key to Student Success: a Plant-based Protein Supplement Helped Freshmen Adapt to a New City
Scientists of Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University helped students adapt to a new city by using plant-based food made with cryogenic technology. Climate change during the move, as well as the pressure of the learning process, often causes stress, reduces immunity, and increases the number of infectious diseases. The functional food supplement stimulated the immune system of students, reduced their susceptibility to respiratory (1.7 times) and skin diseases (5.7 times). This became possible due to the high content of vitamins and minerals in the food supplement. The results are published in the Nutrients journal.
Future students often need to move to another city. Sometimes these cities have very different climates comparing to their native ones. This adds stress for the whole body: first-year students need to adapt not only to the workload and new social environment but also to the new place of living. Previously, doctors of Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (Kaliningrad) and the Privolzhsky Research Medical University (Nizhny Novgorod) found that young people who move to regions with a humid marine climate, such as Kaliningrad, more often getting infected with respiratory and skin diseases. So this researchers team decided to find an effective way to increase the immunity of freshman students.
It was studied that people with an unbalanced or deficient diet are less resistant to various infections. The reason is the lack of vitamins, macro, and micronutrients. It suppresses the immune system. The research team of Professor Rophail Rakhmanov developed a new protein-plant supplement. This supplement contains biologically active substances, which are needed for the normal functioning of the human body—vitamins A, B1, B2, E, K, C, and minerals (iron, copper, zinc). This supplement is produced as a pill and consists of dehydrated and heavily ground oats, rosehip, spinach, laminary, parsley, celery, watermelon seeds, and egg protein. Removing water at extremely low temperatures increased the concentration of biologically active substances in ingredients. Therefore one gram of dry cryo-powder of the product can replace 700-1000 grams of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Then the researching team examined how the product affects the health of the first-year students. For this purpose, 100 student volunteers were divided into two groups: the first—therapeutic group—took the product twice a day for two weeks, and the second—test group—were taking a placebo. The researchers assessed the immune status of patients by blood tests. For this purpose, they examined the levels of vitamins, mineral substances, serum immunoglobulins (proteins of the immune response), as well as the hormones of the stress of cortisol in students' blood tests. These studies were taking place at the Research Institute of Hygiene, Toxicology, and Occupational Pathology (RIHTOP) under the authority of the Federal Medical-Biological Agency. It turns out that all of the subjects had elevated cortisol levels due to adaptation to new living conditions. In addition, hemoglobin and immunoglobulin levels in the blood of students in the control group declined significantly throughout one and a half months. It is a sign of low immunity and inflammatory reactions in the body. At the same time, freshmen who were given functional food had significantly higher levels of these proteins as well as levels of vitamins and minerals in their blood.
In addition, scientists tracked how often students of each group had respiratory and skin diseases—the most common diseases among people moving to the Kaliningrad region. It turns out that freshmen from the treatment group were 1.7 times less likely to have SARS and flu, and 5.7 times less likely to have skin diseases than placebo patients.
"Our research proved that the suggested function food based on plant and protein raw materials greatly improving the condition of the blood vessels and immune systems of students. This improvement protected students from respiratory and skin diseases. In further research we plan to define how the composition of products manufactured by cryogenic technology can be modified to be used as a prevention of specific diseases", - says Andrey Tarasov, the Ph.D. in Medical Sciences, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine at Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University.
Provided by Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University
