Lotus toot extract: An investigation of its antioxidant and anticancer properties for potential application in functional foods

This study investigates the effects of lotus root extract (LRE) on antioxidants and cancer prevention to understand how lotus can be used as a natural ingredient in health -promoting foods. We tested the extract's ability to neutralize harmful molecules using the DPPH assay and found that its effectiveness increases with the amount of extract used. The concentration of 22.21 g/mL was key for the extract to show its protective effects. Additionally, our research showed that LRE is good at removing harmful substances like nitrite (21.14 mu g/mL) and hydrogen peroxide (24.91 mu g/mL). Importantly, lotus extracts were especially effective against human breast cancer cells. Through MTT analysis at 15.60 g/mL, we found LRE to be very effective in killing these cancer cells. This killing process involves the increase of certain proteins (p53, caspase 3, and 9) and the breaking up of DNA, which are signs of cancer cells being programmed to die. Our findings indicate that LRE could be a strong candidate for cancer prevention. This research sheds light on how lotus root extract could be used in healthpromoting foods and suggests it might be worth exploring more as a treatment against cancer. (c) 2024 The Authors. Published by IASE. This is an open access article under the CC BY -NC -ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).