ANSWER
Purple Sweet Potato is a cultivar of sweet potato which has purple flesh, a high anthocyanin content with high productivity. It was developed in Japan over decades ago by cross-breeding a line of ‘Kyushu No. 109’ that contains anthocyanin with a white-flesh cultivar ‘Satsumahikari’ in which lack of β-amylase activity. Purple sweet potato can be used in food additives as natural colorants because of the anthocyanin pigments, which also aids the purple sweet potato to have a high stability against heat and ultraviolet irradiation. In addition to their uses as natural colorants, purple sweet potato can be processed to produce concentrated juice, paste and flour (Oki et al., 2016).
In addition, the modulatory effect of purple sweet potato anthocyanins on human intestinal microbiota also had been studied by researchers. The results showed the anthocyanin of purple sweet potato had inhibited the growth of bacteria, and did not affect the total bacteria number. Hence, the study suggesting that purple sweet potato anthocyanins might have prebiotic-like activity by generating SCFAs and modulating the intestinal microbiota. Hence, this has led to the improvement the health of human (Zhang, Yang, Wu & Weng, 2016).
Enclosed herewith the case studies on the health benefits of purple sweet potato:-
| References | Case study | Experiments | Result |
| Chen, C. M., et al., 2005 | Immunological effect of physiological doses of purple sweet potato leaves (PSPL). | 16 healthy non-smoking adults with normal weight which consume 200g of PSPL per day and the fasting blood were collected weekly.
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PSPL will modulate immune functions such as increased generation responsiveness of secretion of lytic activity of natural killer (NK) cells. Thus, this able increase the cell-cell recognition activity. Besides, PSPL also rich in carotenoids which act as antioxidants in human body. |
| Suda et al., 2008 | Examine the effect of purple sweet potato (PSP) beverage rich in acylated anthocyanins on serum hepatic biomarkers. | 38 healthy adult men with borderline hepatitis that had serum gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) were assigned into PSP group and placebo group. PSP group has to consume two bottle of PSP beverage with acylated anthocyanins per day whereas placebo group has to consume two bottle of placebo beverage per day. | PSP beverage showed potential beneficial effects of PSP beverages on liver function and blood pressure in volunteers with impaired hepatic function and/or hypertension. |
| Kansas State University, 2009
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Health benefits of purple sweet potato. | Extracted pigments from purple sweet potato and injected it into an HPLC-MS Analysis to separate the components. Then, treated human colon cancer cells with the low concentration of the derivatives of anthocyanin. | Cyanidin and peonidin have a significant cell growth inhibition for cancer cells and purple sweet potato has higher total phenolic content than other sweet potato. Phenols are chemical compound that have been found to have anti-aging and antioxidant components.
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| Sugata et al., 2014 | Potential of anti-inflammatory and anticancer activities of purple sweet potato. | Extract the purple sweet potato using acidified ethanol pH 3.5 under 80°C and few assays have been carried out such as MTT Assay, Migration Assay, Nitric Oxide (NO) Griess Assay, Western Blot and Statistical Analysis. | The extract exhibits the anti-inflammatory activities by suppressing the production of nitric oxide and proinflammatory cytokines. It also inhibits the growth of cancer cell such as breast cancer, gastric cancer, and colon adenocarcinoma through extrinsic and intrinsic pathway. |
| Lee et al., 2015
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The ability of purple sweet potato on induces apoptosis and reduces inflammatory adipokine expression in 3T3-L1 differentiated adipocytes. | Purple sweet potato leaves extracts (PSPLE) were extracted from the leave by adding one liter of boiling water for an hour and then filtered, lyophilized, and stored it at -20°C. The differentiated 3T3-L1 cell, (cell that derived from adipose tissue) was treated with purple sweet potato leave extract (PSPLE) and carried the analysis. | The differentiated 3T3-L1 cell with PSPLE cause decrease in the number of adipocytes (fat cell) which mean PSPLE able to prevent metabolic syndrome such as high blood pressure, excess body fat and abnormal cholesterol. |
References
Chen, C. M., Li, s. C., Lin, Y. L., Shieh, M.J., & Liu, J. F. (2005). Consumption of purple sweet potato leaves modulates human immune response: T-lymphocyte functions, lytic activity of natural killer cell and antibody production. World Journal of Gastroenterology, 11(37), 5777-5781. https://doi.org/10.3748/wjg.v11.i37.5777
Kansas State University (2009). Purple Sweet Potato Means Increased Amount of Anti-cancer Components.
Lee, S., Chin, T., Tu, S., Wang, Y., Hsu, Y., Kao, M., & Wu, Y. (2015). Purple Sweet Potato Leaf Extract Induces Apoptosis and Reduces Inflammatory Adipokine Expression in 3T3-L1 Differentiated Adipocytes. Evidence-Based Complementary And Alternative Medicine, 2015, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/126302
Oki, T., Kano, M., Watanabe, O., Goto, K., Boelsma, E., Ishikawa, F., & Suda, I. (2016). Effect of consuming a purple-fleshed sweet potato beverage on health-related biomarkers and safety parameters in Caucasian subjects with elevated levels of blood pressure and liver function biomarkers: a 4-week, open-label, non-comparative trial. Bioscience Of Microbiota, Food And Health, 35(3), 129-136. https://doi.org/10.12938/bmfh.2015-026
Suda, I., Ishikawa, F., Hatakeyama, M., Miyawaki, M., Kudo, T., & Hirano, K. et al. (2007). Intake of purple sweet potato beverage affects on serum hepatic biomarker levels of healthy adult men with borderline hepatitis. European Journal Of Clinical Nutrition, 62(1), 60-67. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602674
Sugata, M., Lin, C., & Shih, Y. (2015). Anti-Inflammatory and Anticancer Activities of Taiwanese Purple-Fleshed Sweet Potatoes (Ipomoea batatasL. Lam) Extracts. Biomed Research International, 2015, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/768093
Zhang X., Yang Y., Wu Z. & Weng P. (2016). The Modulatory Effect of Anthocyanins from Purple Sweet Potato on Human Intestinal Microbiota in Vitro. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 64(12), 2582-2590. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.6b00586
