Indian Horse Chestnut is wildly grown at high altitudes and goes wastes due to lack of awareness, improper processing techniques for the development of value added products. That could be used to develop variety in products with high nutritional and medicinal values. The best known benefit is from the aescin inside the Horse Chestnut which cures several ailments. An attempt was made to see the hypocholesterolemic and hypoglycaemic efficacy of the flour by running animal trial. The blood glucose level was found to be decreased from 228 to 95 mg/dl in rats who were fed 75 per cent processed flour fed diet. The total blood cholesterol level was from 386 to 247 mg/dl. Triglycerides, VLDL and LDL level found lowered in all the different ratio of the processed flour from the control with 1 per cent cholesterol diet fed rats. However, HDL which is good cholesterol, among the test diet, was found maximum 39.41 mg/dl in processed flour (75 per cent) fed rats.

Horse Chestnut is a tree native to the Balkan Peninsula but found throughout the northern hemisphere. The seeds, leaves, bark and flowers of this plant have been used for centuries to help to relieve an array of health problems Horse Chestnut seeds are used as a traditional remedy for vascular problems like chronic venous insufficiency. Indian Horse Chestnut (Aesculus indica) belongs to the family Hipocastanaceae and is mainly grown at the high altitude (1000- 3050 m) and is native to Himalayan region. In Himachal Pradesh, it is widely grown in some of the hill areas of Kangra, Shimla and Mandi districts. It is also distributed across North-eastern Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir and Nepal. Matured seeds of the Indian Horse Chestnut (Aesculus indica) were procured; cleaned manually, washed to remove any adhering dirt, dust and foreign particles. The seeds were crushed and soaked in water for the removal of toxicity. For the removal of toxicity, the traditional practice which was used by the rural folks was followed .In this method, the crushed seeds were soaked in water for 6 days and daily soaked water was replaced with fresh water. This process was continued for 6 days.

Methanol: Distilled water (80:20) TLC plate Capillaries Hexane (650C B.P) n-Butanol Ethyl acetate Sulphuric acid (20 per cent) System Solvent: n-Butanol: Distilled Water: Acetic Acid (40:50:10) Processed flour was then dried after decanting water in a cabinet drier at 50-60 degree Celsius and ground to a fine powder in a grinder to get homogenous mass, packed in air-tight containers till further use for biological trial.

As is evident from the biological experimentation there is increase in the good fat ie.HDL and decrease in the values of bad fats .So from the aforesaid discussion it is inferred that utilization of processed flour in the diet can definitely improve the blood lipid profile. All these changes might be due to the active component “aescin” of Indian Horse Chestnut flour. The isolates derived from the other species of Aesculus. Dworschak et al. found after animal experiment that 1(%) Horse Chestnut Seed Extract (aescin) reduced the elevated blood cholesterol level whereas, Zhang et al. reported that the isolated compounds derived from edible seeds of Aesculus turbinata exhibited inhibitory effect on lipase activity responsible to decreased level of triglycerides and cholesterol. It is inferred that the presence of saponin in diet might be responsible for improving the blood lipid profile in experimental rats.

Warm Regards,
Joseph Kent
Journal Manager
Journal of Clinical Nutrition & Dietetics