Prospects for the use of calendula flower polysaccharide in the post‑stress period

Background.  Stress and its consequences have become one of the most significant medical and social problems of our time, affecting about 80% of all diseases. Everyone, regardless of age, gender, culture or social status, is affected by stress. This circumstance leads to a growing interest in the study of adaptive reactions to various types of stress, their negative consequences and the search for effective and fast methods to prevent and eliminate them in modern society.

The variety of adaptive reactions, their mechanisms and optimization possibilities, as well as ways to increase the body's resistance to adverse effects remain important issues of pathological physiology and pharmacology.

In recent decades, a particularly relevant area has become the study of new natural plant adaptogens that can limit stress, and which are more common than traditional ones, such as ginseng, rhodiola rosea and eleutherococcus prickly. The clinical value of these new adaptogens is determined by their ability to effectively optimize the processes of emergency and long-term adaptation, which includes reducing hyperergic damage caused by stress, activating regenerative metabolic processes, prolonging the stage of resistance and preventing the development of the stage of exhaustion. In addition, new plant adaptogens should have medicinal properties, contributing to faster recovery after stress damage and dysfunction of various systems and organs.

Purpose. To study the effect of polysaccharide extracted from calendula flowers on the regulation of erythropoiesis and restoration of hematopoietic functions in animals under stress, as well as to evaluate its potential as a therapeutic agent for improving the body's condition in the post-stress period.

Materials and methods. In the course of the work, a review of literature data from open medical databases such as eLibrary, PubMed, Google Scholar and the Chinese CNKI citation database was conducted. The review was unsystematic in nature and was a semantic analysis of research conducted over the past 10 years (from 2014 to 2024). As a result, more than 4,000 publications were found. The materials received were analyzed and discussed by the research group, and only those papers that met the following criteria were included in the final review: the study is devoted to the study of stress mechanisms and their correction; it is an experimental or clinical study with a clearly described methodology that allows the results to be considered reliable; published in peer-reviewed scientific journals; the full-text version of the article is available in open databases or can be obtained from the authors through the Research Gate.

Results. This review is devoted to the consideration of various aspects of the biological activity of plant polysaccharides, in particular those extracted from calendula officinalis flowers and the possibility of their use as effective plant adaptogens under stress.

Conclusion. The results of the experiment showed that the polysaccharide helps to reduce the number of erythroblastic islets in the bone marrow and the level of red blood cells in the blood, which may indicate its ability to regulate erythropoiesis. In addition, there was a significant increase in hemoglobin levels and its concentration in erythrocytes, as well as an increase in catalase activity in erythrocyte membranes in animals treated with polysaccharide. These data confirm the possibility of using calendula polysaccharide as a therapeutic agent for restoring hematopoietic functions and improving the body's condition in the post-stress period, which opens up new prospects for further research in this field.