(Adnkronos) - Al gelso, nelle sue varietà bianca e nera, è dedicata la puntata di oggi de il Gusto della Salute, la rubrica online ideata e condotta dall'immunologo Mauro Minelli della Fondazione Medicina Personalizzata, in collaborazione con Adnkronos Salute e Università LUM. "Si tratta di frutti dolci che sormontano alberi maestosi, già noti ai tempi dei romani e apprezzati per le loro qualità benefiche. 'Plinio il Vecchio lo definiva sapientissima arborum, la più saggia fra tutte le piante - ricorda Marco Renna esperto di cultura popolare - perché il gelso attende di scongiurare le ultime gelate prima di emettere le foglie. Originario dell'estremo Oriente, fu Marco Polo di ritorno dal suo lungo viaggio a portare con sé scorte importanti di frutti di gelso che, nel corso del quattordicesimo secolo, si diffuse in tutta Europa". L'analisi nutrizionale, curata dalla biologa nutrizionista Ilaria Vergallo, evidenzia innanzitutto "il basso potere calorico dei gelsi adatti, dunque, anche alle diete dimagranti. Contengono principalmente acqua e carboidrati, con minime percentuali di proteine e grassi. Alto è l'apporto di fibre - continua - importantissime per le funzioni intestinali. Sul piano nutrizionale, i gelsi possono essere considerati dei perfetti integratori naturali perché contengono ferro, potassio, manganese, magnesio e fosforo, ideali per chi fa sport, specie d'estate quando il sudore è più copioso". L'impatto clinico del gelso è illustrato da Mauro Minelli che, in apertura, ricorda "il contenuto prezioso di antiossidanti presente nei gelsi, in grado di rallentare i processi di invecchiamento cellulare e così di contrastare gli stati infiammatori e i processi degenerativi organici, con azione anche anti-tumorale - evidenzia Minelli - Decisivo è il ruolo del resveratrolo, sostanza nota per essere presente anche nell'uva, alleata potente della salute cardiovascolare. Degna di nota è anche la presenza di fitoestrogeni che contribuiscono a regimentare i livelli ematici del colesterolo. Importante l'apporto di vitamina C per rafforzare il sistema immunitario e di vitamine del gruppo B, supporti strategici per le complessive funzioni metaboliche del nostro organismo". "Di contro le more di gelso, per via del loro contenuto zuccherino, dovranno essere assunte con parsimonia dai soggetti diabetici tanto più se già in cura con farmaci ipoglicemizzanti. Inoltre i frutti del gelso possono interferire con l'azione farmacologica di medicamenti diversi, tra cui gli antidepressivi e gli ansiolitici. Il tutto da verificare sempre e comunque con gli indispensabili pareri esperti dei propri medici di fiducia", conclude Minelli.
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00:00 There are the classic Moorish meadows,
00:02 that is, the so-called forest fruits that we all know and that spontaneously grow
00:06 among the wild bushes.
00:08 And then there are the Moorish meadows, which instead
00:11 mature between May and August on majestic trees,
00:15 even up to 20 meters high, already known in the Roman times when Pliny
00:20 described the virtues and health properties, virtues and properties that we too
00:26 our little one, we will decline in this new episode of the Taste of Health.
00:32 [Music]
00:58 The gelso tree belongs to the family of the Moraceae. It is a long-lived plant,
01:03 resistant to the wide foliage, endowed with bright green and chory leaves,
01:08 leaves of which the silk-barked ones feed on,
01:12 they feed on in a voracious way before wrapping themselves inside their
01:17 prized bushes. In Italy, of the gelso trees,
01:21 there are two different varieties that differ from each other
01:27 because of the colors of their fruits.
01:30 We have the white gelso, Morus alba,
01:34 plant native to East Asia and producer of small white fruits,
01:39 certainly edible but not easily found on the markets
01:43 because of their not easy conservability.
01:47 And then there is the black gelso, Morus nigra, which is instead a plant
01:52 native to Asia Minor and producer of the classic gelso blackberries,
01:57 small berries of a maximum length of two and a half centimeters,
02:02 carnivorous, succulent, very dark, which can be consumed as such,
02:08 therefore raw, that is, used to prepare sweets, confections, syrups, jellies.
02:15 These berries, as I said at the beginning,
02:19 were known in Roman times when Pliny told about them,
02:23 described their health properties, which, among other things, Pliny himself
02:27 differentiated according to the levels of fruit ripening,
02:31 in the sense that the acerbic fruit, according to Pliny,
02:35 was able to block bleeding, while the ripe fruit was able to
02:40 effectively counteract stomach or throat pain.
02:45 But let's try to go a little more into the specifics of the historical curiosities
02:50 of this little fruit, taken care of by our Marco Renna.
02:55 In Greek culture, the gelso was considered a sacred plant,
03:05 while the Latin poet Ovid gives it a literary centrality in its metamorphosis.
03:12 The great writer and naturalist Pliny the Elder
03:16 defined it as "sapientissima arborum", the wisest among plants,
03:21 because the gelso had the ability to emit leaves only after it had
03:26 conjured the last jellies.
03:28 Originary from China, it was Marco Polo, after his long trip to the East,
03:36 to bring home important sparks of gelso, which then, in the following century,
03:43 spread throughout Europe.
03:46 And Marco Polo documented, in some way,
03:50 the ability to relieve throat pain, and if mixed with a little honey,
03:58 also to somehow manage to keep the stomach disorders at bay.
04:04 It is said that in the easternmost part of Italy, in Otranto,
04:09 during the conquest of the Saracen Turks in 1480,
04:13 women would gather under a gelso tree to pray
04:19 for the Turks to leave Otranto or to be somehow expelled.
04:25 And from there, a few months later, the coalition, led by the Duke Alfonso d'Aragona,
04:33 in some way, fulfilled those prayers.
04:38 From a nutritional point of view, gelso has a low caloric power,
04:47 so certainly fruits that are great for diets for the lean.
04:51 100 grams of these fruits provide about 43 calories.
04:55 They are made up of 90% water, 9% carbohydrates,
05:00 and the rest, instead, is made up of proteins and even lower in fat content.
05:05 They contain fibers, very important for digestion and to improve intestinal mobility.
05:10 Gelso are considered natural integrators, because they are rich in minerals.
05:15 They are rich in iron, but also in potassium, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus.
05:18 For this reason, they are very suitable in the summer,
05:21 especially if you do sports, if you sweat excessively.
05:24 As for the vitamin intake, we have, above all, vitamin C,
05:28 but also important quantities of vitamins from the group B, vitamin A, vitamin E and vitamin K.
05:33 Gelso contain important amounts of antioxidants.
05:37 We have carotenoids, alpha and beta carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin.
05:40 Above all, gelso are distinguished in white and black, not only for the color,
05:44 but also for the antioxidant content, which is greater in the dark type.
05:49 Actually, the dark ones are sweeter and juicier than the white ones,
05:52 which are hardly used in the wild.
05:56 Fruits are generally used fresh and dried to prepare sweets,
06:00 jam, granita or ice cream, while the advice is certainly to
06:04 use them for breakfast, for example, together with a yogurt or in the
06:08 spuntino to enrich a macedonia.
06:12 The mores of gelso can be considered as a real source of
06:22 antioxidants and therefore as such able to counteract or at least
06:28 slow down cell aging processes and therefore to protect
06:33 our body from inflammatory states, neurodegenerative diseases,
06:38 infections, tumors. Among the antioxidants contained in these small fruits,
06:44 I would like to remember, for example, the anthocyanins, but also the manganese,
06:48 but above all the resveratrol, a substance that we know to be contained
06:53 in grapes and red wine and that certainly exerts an important antioxidant action,
07:00 but it is also a powerful ally of cardiovascular health.
07:04 Other substances, however, are contained
07:07 within the fruits of gelso. Among these substances, I would like to
07:11 remember in particular the zeaxantin, which exerts a protective action on the
07:17 skin and therefore is certainly a good support for the visual function.
07:21 Then there are still the phytoestrogens, which can be quite useful
07:28 to keep the hematic levels of cholesterol under control.
07:31 And it is still made up of iron,
07:34 useful to compensate for the anemic iron deficiencies.
07:38 There is vitamin C, useful to support the functions of the immune system.
07:42 There are vitamins of group B that we know
07:45 to be important supports for the overall metabolic functions of our body.
07:50 On the other hand, it must be said that the
07:53 mores of gelso, being particularly rich in
07:56 sugars, should be taken with a certain
08:01 parsimony from those subjects possibly diabetic, perhaps already in treatment with
08:06 hypoglycemic drugs, but then it must also be said that these fruits are able to
08:12 supplement, for example, the side effects of anticholesterol drugs and are able to
08:17 interfere with the pharmacological action of different drugs, among which I remember
08:23 in particular the antidepressants or the anxiolytics, in particular benzodiazepines,
08:29 still the barbiturates, the drugs for the gout and in general all those drugs
08:34 that follow the metabolic path of the so-called P450 3A4 chitochrome.
08:41 It is in this last case of
08:43 technical information that, as always, will be compared with those that are the
08:48 opinions of our doctors of trust.
08:50 I.
08:52 I.
08:54 I.
08:56 I.
08:58 [music]
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