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Objective: Chicken essence and branched chain amino acid (BCAA) supplementation has been recognized to significantly relieve fatigue. To obtain chicken essence with high amounts of BCAA, spent hens herein was used to prepare dripped chicken essence (SCE) and compared with commercial dripped chicken essence (CCE) for in vivo anti-fatigue effect., Methods: To determine the effect on anti-fatigue by dripped chicken essence, the exhaustive swimming was performed. Thirty-two 7-week ICR mice were divided into four groups, which included the control group (CG), CCE, SCE-1X and SCE-2X. The mice were given daily oral administration (0.012 mL/g body weight/d). The fatigue index analysis was conducted weekly., Results: The results showed that SCE had a higher BCAA level as expected, and mice treated with dripped chicken essence (CCE and SCE) could significantly improve exercise performance. The lower blood lactate level, blood urea nitrogen level and creatine phosphokinase activity were found in the supplement of SCE group compared with the CCE group, which suggested that the SCE possessed strong anti-fatigue ability. This could possibly be due to the higher content of BCAA., Conclusion: In this study, SCE promoted recovery from physical fatigue in mice and elevated endurance ability. Among them, the double dose (SCE-2X) showed the strongest anti-fatigue ability. Taken together, spent chickens could be a good source of chicken essence to improve the effect of anti-fatigue.

The Taiwanese native fern Davallia formosana Hayata (DFH) is used to treat bone diseases in classical Chinese medicine. We analyzed MC3T3E1 osteoblasts treated with different concentrations of water and ethanol extracts (10, 25, and 50 [both], and 100 μg/mL [DFE only]) using cell viability, expression of osteoblast differentiation markers [bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2), collagen 1 (CoL-1), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and Runt-related transcription factor 2 (Runx 2)], and mineralization. These were significantly increased by DFW or DFE after 24-h incubation compared with the untreated controls. Compared with other treatments, DFW 50 and DFE 100 μg/mL significantly increased MC3T3E1 cell survival. DFW 25 and 50 μg/mL increased bone BMP-2, CoL-1, ALP, and Runx2 protein expression, ALP activity, and mineralization more than DFE did. Repeated chromatographic separation of DFW yielded compound (-)-epicatechin-3-O-d-allipyranoside (ECAP), which was characterized using 1 H and 13 C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. (-)-Epicatechin-3-O-d-allipyranoside (0.01 μg/mL) significantly increased cell survival (118.9%) and mineralization (218.7%) compared with that of the control treatment. We inferred that ECAP could mediate the main activity of DFW in bone formation, likely through BMP-2-induced Runx2 transcription, which increased bone cell differentiation factors ALP and CoL-1 and promoted mineralization. (-)-Epicatechin-3-O-d-allipyranoside could be an anti-osteoporotic agent. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., (Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)