London-based conference to explore benefits of bioactives; public forum Wednesday
London Community News
Researchers will explore the disease-fighting properties of items you might have in your spice rack at an international conference in London beginning Monday (July 9).
The three-day conference dubbed Cultivating Natural Bioactives will bring 40 speakers from Canada, China, India, Australia and the U.S. to the London Convention Centre to discuss the latest research on how natural bioactives such as ginseng, cumin and other medicinal herbs can be used to treat diseases such as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and depression.
A bioactive is defined as a natural substance that can benefit a person’s health.
The conference is hosted by Western University’s Ontario Ginseng Innovation and Research Consortium (OGIRC).
The speakers will talk about issues such as adding natural bioactives to food, regulating natural supplements, using cumin for treating schizophrenia and fighting inflammation and the wide range of medicinal uses for ginseng.
The University of Windsor’s Siyaram Pandey will also talk about his research using dandelion root, turmeric and long pepper extracts to fight cancer.
“We want to bring experts from different backgrounds to exchange their ideas and their findings about natural bioactives, because each country has its challenges. We want to learn from each other, and hope it will ultimately lead to collaborations,” said Ed Lui, a conference organizer, researcher at the OGIRC and professor of physiology and pharmacology at Western’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. “Researchers can now produce state of the art experimental models that show that ginseng actually works in cardiovascular health, cancer, even exercise-induced muscle injury, erectile dysfunction, infection, inflammation; everything under the sun seems to respond to ginseng, and more than that, we are now starting to understand the molecular mechanism of how it works.”
The conference will also include a free public forum on Wednesday (July 11) from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. where experts will answer questions about the proper and safe use of herbal products and health supplements.
The public is asked to pre-register for the forum by visiting https://www.cvent.com/events/natural-bioactives-conference/registration-95bcb740f4804a8fab19e8f344356832.aspx?r=2c0352ae-8450-403b-a123-3143fd7edfdf by Sunday (July 8).
Visit http://naturalbioactivesconference.com/?page_id=9 for the conference’s full program.