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Background: In recent years, antioxidants have become essential in nutrition because of their ability to protect the body against oxidative cell damage that can produce dangerous diseases. Medicinal plants are a major source of many bioactive molecules that act directly on the body. Objective: The main objective of our work is to highlight the antioxidant potential of the essential oil (EO) of Origanum elongatum Emb and Maire (endemic plant of Morocco), determine its composition, and carry out fractionation operations to isolate the molecule (s) responsible for this activity. Materials and Methods: The measurement of the antioxidant activity of the EO is carried out by trapping the free radical 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl and the composition of the EO is determined using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. The fractionation of the EO was carried out by various chromatography techniques. Results: The results show that the EO has an interesting antioxidant activity with an EC50in the order of 1.2 in comparison with a reference antioxidant, δ-tocopherol whose EC50is 0.26. The EO of O. elongatum consists of 11 compounds, of which 3 are the majority: carvacrol (60.42%), para-cymene (13.9%), and γ-terpinene (9.4%). Conclusion: Fractionation of the oil made it possible to isolate a purified antioxidant molecule consisting mainly of carvacrol (95%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection in children is very high in Morocco. Eradication rates of H. pylori infection decrease due to the emergence of resistance to antibiotics. Data on the antimicrobial susceptibility of H. pylori in Moroccan children are not available. This study aims to assess the prevalence of H. pylori infection and the metronidazole resistance rate of H. pylori in Moroccan pediatric patients, and their association with epidemiologic factors., Methods: a cross-sectional study was conducted on 132 pediatric patients who had an indication for upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and attended pediatric hospital Abderrahim Harouchi of the University Hospital Ibn Rochd, Casablanca, Morocco. Detection of H. pylori infection and the susceptibility to metronidazole was performed by classic PCR. Statistical analysis was performed using R Studio software., Results: the overall prevalence of H. pylori infection was 80.3%. vomiting was significantly associated with H. pylori infection (p-value=0.01). Regarding the resistance rate of metronidazole, we found that the prevalence of H. pylori resistance to metronidazole was high (70.8%) and it significantly increased, especially in pediatric patients living in urban areas (p-value=0.01)., Conclusion: the prevalence of H. pylori infection and resistance rate of metronidazole were very high in Moroccan children. Therefore, triple therapy with metronidazole must be preceded by a study of the bacterium's susceptibility to the prescribed antibiotics, in particular to metronidazole., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright: Fatima Zahra Kheir et al.)