A balanced diet must guarantee an optimal health status, reducing the risks of deficiency and chronic degenerative diseases while remaining satisfactory to the palate. Our current lifestyle has influenced the habits of food consumption, demanding greater quality in natural products and healthier foods. We present data obtained from the evaluation of the protective effect of medicinal plants and diet products commonly used in our country (Argentina) against DNA damage induced by xenobiotics such as cyclophosphamide (CP) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Selected species were Aloysia gratissima var. schulziana (common name cedrón) and Lippia integrifolia (common name poleo) belonging to Verbenaceae family, and Rorippa nasturtium (watercress), Diplotaxis tenuifolia (wild rocket) and Eruca vesicaria (rocket) belonging to Brassicaceae family. Studies were carried out in an in vivo model using male and female Swiss mice (n=64 for each studied botanical species). The animals were treated by gavage during 14 consecutive days with different doses of juice or infusion representing human consumption. The protective effect against DNA damage was determined through the comet assay in blood cells
and the micronucleus test in bone marrow cells, which are biomarkers used for genotoxicity evaluations. Our results show that: a) Watercress juice exerted antigenotoxic activity against induced oxidative damage. This was the first evidence that watercress aqueous extract has an effective antigenotoxic activity against DNA damage induced by H2O2 in an in vivo mammalian system assessed by the comet assay (p<0.01). b) Neither rocket species induced any genetic damage in contrast with controls according to the comet assay and the micronucleus test, exhibiting instead a protective activity against CP, which was significantly greater (p<0.05) for Diplotaxis tenuifolia than Eruca vesicaria, presumably due to differences in their phytochemical composition. c) Verbenaceae species exhibited a similar behavior, with an increase in their protective role against damage induced by xenobiotics. A statistically significant difference (p<0.001) was observed in the damage index obtained by the comet assay and the frequency of micronuclei between the group treated with Verbenaceae and the positive control group, which would confirm the protective effect of the consumption of these infusions. Although many thousands of botanical species exist on our planet, men are not able to fully profit from their beneficial properties due to the scarce knowledge we currently have on them. Therefore, there is still a very long way to go in order for men to be able to benefit from nature so as to improve our quality of life.