Quercetin- herbal bioactive nanotechnology for osteoarthritis & elderly health

Quercetin is rapidly emerging “bioactive” in the western world in the form of food supplement or healthy ingredient to address several lifestyle issues such as cardiovascular, hypertension and diabetes issues, obesity and cancer. It is a flavanoid found common in some healthy fruits and vegetables/ spices such as Red Onion, Coriander, Pomegranate, Asparagus, Green Tea, Coffee etc. It is highly anti-inflammatory and sold as over the counter food supplement in the western world to address cardiovascular, hypertension and diabetes issues. Osteoarthritis, an auto-immune disease prevails among the musco-skeletal diseases that comprise 4th most disabling conditions among elders globally but no proven drug yet (Shen et al, . Quercetin has shown to attenuate it in vivo, in vitro and even limited human trials by scavenging free radicals that and preventing the loss of bone/ cartilage/ muscle. However, quercetin bioabsorption is low so we propose its conjugation with non-polar amino acid viz. Glycine for multiplier effect. Glycine is a key component of Glutathione, the natural antioxidant in the human body. Glycine alone shown to improve collagen synthesis by articular chondrocytes in vitro and its deficiency may cause osteoarthritis, vide literature. So its conjugate with Quercetin boost the Glutathione level & improve body’s own antioxidant system , to reduce the cartilage loss and prevent osteoarthritis.