aikoediblebirdnest.com
A few species of swift, namely cave swifts, are renowned for building the nests used to produce the soup’s unique texture. Such edible bird’s nests are among the most expensive animal products consumed by humans. The nests have been traditionally consumed in China for over four-hundred years.
The most heavily harvested nests are from the Whit-nest swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphogus ) and the Black nest swiftlet (Aerodramus maximus) (Gausset, 2004). The white nests and the “red blood” nests are supposedly rich in nutrients which are traditionally believed to provide health benefits, such as aiding digestion, raising libido, improving the voice, alleviating asthma, increasing conccentration, and an overall benefit to the immune system. However, Many researchers has study nutrients value of Edible bird’s nest as following.
Sources:
http://www.pubmed.gov
Articles
Edible bird’s nest extract inhibits influenza virus infection.
Edible bird’s nest (EBN) is the nest of the swift that is made from is saliva. Although EBN has been widely used for enhancing immunocompetence, its antiviral efficacy has not been studied in detail. We found that EBN extract could strongly inhibit infection with influenza virused in a host range-independent manner when it was hydrolyzed with Pancreatin F. Western blotting assay showed that the EBN extract bound to influenza virus. Furthermore, EBN extract could neutralize the infection of MDCK cells with influenza viruses and inhibit hemagglutination of influenza viruses to erythrocytes but it could not inhibit the activity of influenza virus sialidase. Fluorometric HPLC indicated that the major molecular species of sialic acid in EBN is N-acetylneuraminic acid. The results suggest that EBN is a safe and valid natural source for the prevention of influenza viruses.
PMID: 16581142 [PubMed – as supplied by publisher]
Researchers:
Guo CT, Takahashi T,
Bukawa W,
Takahashi N, Yagi H,
Kato K,
Hidari KI,
Miyamoto D,
Suzuki Y.
http://www.pubmed.gov
Articles
Purification and chemical study of a Collocalia glycoprotein.
A glycoprotein was purified from the aqueous extract of “edible bird’s nest” (Collocallia) using free flow preparative electrophoresis and represented the main fraction of Collocalia glycoproteins. This glycoprotein is homogeneous upon agarose electrophoresis and slightly polydisperse upon ultracentrifugation (S So 20w = 3,0). The carbohydrate moiety contains galactose, mannose, glucosamine, galactosamine and sialic acid, which is completely released by Clostridium Perfringens or Diplococcus pneumoniae neuraminidases and has the same chromatographic behaviour as N-acetyl-neuraminic acid. The peptide part of the glycoprotein is rich in serine, threonine and proline. About 40 p. cent of the hydroxyaminoacids are involved in carbohydrate-peptide linkages.
PMID: 1182216 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
Researchers:
Houdret N, Lhermitte M, Degand P, Roussel P.
