From kitchen to clinic: Pharmacotherapeutic potential of common spices in Indian cooking in age-related neurological disorders

Aging is described as an advanced time-related collection of changes that may negatively affect with the risk of several diseases or death. Aging is a main factor of several age-related neurological disorders, including neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia), stroke, neuroinflammation, neurotoxicity, brain tumors, oxidative stress, and reactive oxygen species (ROS). Currently available medications for age-related neurological disorders may lead to several side effects, such as headache, diarrhea, nausea, gastrointestinal (GI) diseases, dyskinesia, and hallucinosis. These days, studies on plant efficacy in traditional medicine are being conducted because herbal medicine is affordable, safe, and culturally acceptable and easily accessible. The Indian traditional medicine system called Ayurveda uses several herbs and medicinal plants to treat various disorders including neurological disorders. This review aims to summarize the data on the neuroprotective potential of the following common Indian spices widely used in Ayurveda: cumin (Cuminum cyminum (L.), Apiaceae), black cumin (Nigella sativa (L.), Ranunculaceae), black pepper (Piper nigrum (L.), Piperaceae), curry leaf tree (Murraya koenigii (L.), Spreng Rutaceae), fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum (L.), Fabaceae), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill, Apiaceae), cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum (L.) Maton, Zingiberaceae), cloves (Syzygium aromaticum (L.) Merr. & L.M.Perry, Myrtaceae), and coriander (Coriandrum sativum (L.), Apiaceae) in age-related neurological disorders.

Identification of potential inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 main protease and spike receptor from 10 important spices through structure-based virtual screening and molecular dynamic study

The outbreak of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 poses a serious threat to human health and world economic activity. There is no specific drug for the treatment of COVID-19 patients at this moment. Traditionally, people have been using spices like ginger, fenugreek and onion, etc. for the remedy of a common cold. This work identifies the potential inhibitors of the main protease (Mpro) and spike (S) receptor of SARS-CoV-2 from 10 readily available spices. These two proteins, S and Mpro, play an important role during the virus entry into the host cell, and replication and transcription processes of the virus, respectively. To identify potential molecules an in-house databank containing 1040 compounds was built-up from the selected spices. Structure-based virtual screening of this databank was performed with two important SARS-CoV-2 proteins using Glide. Top hits resulted from virtual screening (VS) were subjected to molecular docking using AutoDock 4.2 and AutoDock Vina to eliminate false positives. The top six hits against Mpro and top five hits against spike receptor subjected to 130 ns molecular dynamic simulation using GROMACS. Finally, the compound 1-, 2-, 3- and 5-Mpro complexes, and compound 17-, 18-, 19-, 20- and 21- spike receptor complexes showed stability throughout the simulation time. The ADME values also supported the drug-like nature of the selected hits. These nine compounds are available in onion, garlic, ginger, peppermint, chili and fenugreek. All the spices are edible and might be used as home remedies against COVID-19 after proper biological evaluation.

Efficacy of Cuminum Cyminum supplementation on lipid profile and anthropometric parameters: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials

We aimed to evaluate the effect of Cuminum Cyminum (CC) supplementation on lipid profile and selected anthropometric parameters. PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Embase databases were systematically searched until May 2021. The random-effect model was used to study the effect sizes. The sources of heterogeneity were assessed using subgroup analysis and meta-regression. Publication bias was studied by funnel plots. The GRADE approach was used to assess the overall quality of the evidence.The data from our eight included studies have indicated that CC supplementation can lower body mass index (BMI) (WMD = -0.88 kg/m² ; 95%CI: -1.58, -0.18; p = .023) and total cholesterol (TC) (WMD = -3.96 mg/dl; 95%CI: -6.51, -1.04; p=.008). Also, after adjusting for publication bias, CC was shown to be effective in improving waist circumference (WC), high-density lipoprotein (HDL-C), and triglycerides (TG) levels. Although, the current evidence has not shown that CC supplementation can affect low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C), our subgroup analysis has indicated that CC supplementation with supplementation length of more than 8 weeks is associated with beneficial effects on LDL-C.While CC might be a suitable choice in managing BMI and TC, further high-quality studies are needed to confirm its efficacy in the clinical setting.

Awareness and current knowledge of epilepsy

Epilepsy is a severe neural disorder that affects approximately fifty million individuals globally. Despite the fact that for most of the people with epilepsy, convulsions are better controlled by current accessible antiepileptic medicines, yet there are more than 30% of individuals affected with medically intractable epilepsy and around 30-40% of all patients with epilepsy affected by many adverse reactions and convulsion resistance to the present antiepileptic drugs. Consequently, various scientists attempt to develop new strategies to treat epilepsy, for instance, to find out novel antiepileptic ingredients from traditional medicines. This work aims to present a complete summary of natural medicines prescribed as antiepileptic agents all over the world by ethnic groups and different tribes. We undertook an extensive bibliographic analysis by searching peer reviewed papers and classical textbooks and further consulting well accepted worldwide scientific databases. We carried out PubMed, EMbase and CENTRAL searches by means of terms such as "antiepileptic" and "anti-convulsant" activity of plants. Medicinal plants have been prescribed to treat epilepsy and have been recognized as antiepileptic medicines. In this review, a variety of herbs have been reviewed for thorough studies such as Cuminum cyminum, Butea monosperma, Solanum americanum, Anacyclus pyrethrum, Leonotis leonurus, Elaeocarpus ganitrus and Angelica archangelica. This paper shows that it was high time experimental studies are increased to obtain novel potential active principles from medicinal plants. Plant extracts and their chemical constituents should be further evaluated to clarify their mechanisms of action. This paper provides a solid base upon which to further investigate the clinical efficacy of medicinal plants that are both currently prescribed by physicians as traditional antiepileptic agents, but also could be effective as an antiepileptic drug with further research and study.

Review: African medicinal plants with wound healing properties

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE

Wounds of various types including injuries, cuts, pressure, burns, diabetic, gastric and duodenal ulcers continue to have severe socio-economic impact on the cost of health care to patients, family and health care institutions in both developing and developed countries. However, most people in the developing countries, especially Africa, depend on herbal remedies for effective treatment of wounds. Various in vitro and in vivo parameters are used for the evaluation of the functional activity of medicinal plants by using extracts, fractions and isolated compounds. The aim of the review is to identify African medicinal plants with wound healing properties within the last two decades.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Electronic databases such as PubMed, Scifinder(®) and Google Scholar were used to search and filter for African medicinal plants with wound healing activity. The methods employed in the evaluation of wound healing activity of these African medicinal plants comprise both in vivo and in vitro models. In vivo wound models such as excision, incision, dead space and burn wound model are commonly employed in assessing the rate of wound closure (contraction), tensile strength or breaking strength determination, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities, hydroxyproline content assay and histological investigations including epithelialisation, collagen synthesis, and granulation tissue formation. In in vitro studies, single cell systems are mostly used to study proliferation and differentiation of dermal fibroblasts and keratinocytes by monitoring typical differentiation markers like collagen and keratin.

RESULTS

In this study, 61 plants belonging to 36 families with scientifically demonstrated or reported wound healing properties were reviewed. Various plant parts including leaves, fruits, stem bark and root extracts of the plants are used in the evaluation of plants for wound healing activities.

CONCLUSION

Although, a variety of medicinal plants for wound healing can be found in literature, there is a need for the isolation and characterization of the bioactive compounds responsible for the wound healing properties. Also, cytotoxicity studies should be performed on the promising agents or bioactive fractions or extracts.

Distillation Time as Tool for Improved Antimalarial Activity and Differential Oil Composition of Cumin Seed Oil

A steam distillation extraction kinetics experiment was conducted to estimate essential oil yield, composition, antimalarial, and antioxidant capacity of cumin (Cuminum cyminum L.) seed (fruits). Furthermore, regression models were developed to predict essential oil yield and composition for a given duration of the steam distillation time (DT). Ten DT durations were tested in this study: 5, 7.5, 15, 30, 60, 120, 240, 360, 480, and 600 min. Oil yields increased with an increase in the DT. Maximum oil yield (content, 2.3 g/100 seed), was achieved at 480 min; longer DT did not increase oil yields. The concentrations of the major oil constituents α-pinene (0.14–0.5% concentration range), β-pinene (3.7–10.3% range), γ-cymene (5–7.3% range), γ-terpinene (1.8–7.2% range), cumin aldehyde (50–66% range), α-terpinen-7-al (3.8–16% range), and β-terpinen-7-al (12–20% range) varied as a function of the DT. The concentrations of α-pinene, β-pinene, γ-cymene, γ-terpinene in the oil increased with the increase of the duration of the DT; α-pinene was highest in the oil obtained at 600 min DT, β-pinene and γ-terpinene reached maximum concentrations in the oil at 360 min DT; γ-cymene reached a maximum in the oil at 60 min DT, cumin aldehyde was high in the oils obtained at 5–60 min DT, and low in the oils obtained at 240–600 min DT, α-terpinen-7-al reached maximum in the oils obtained at 480 or 600 min DT, whereas β-terpinen-7-al reached a maximum concentration in the oil at 60 min DT. The yield of individual oil constituents (calculated from the oil yields and the concentration of a given compound at a particular DT) increased and reached a maximum at 480 or 600 min DT. The antimalarial activity of the cumin seed oil obtained during the 0–5 and at 5–7.5 min DT timeframes was twice higher than the antimalarial activity of the oils obtained at the other DT. This study opens the possibility for distinct marketing and utilization for these improved oils. The antioxidant capacity of the oil was highest in the oil obtained at 30 min DT and lowest in the oil from 360 min DT. The Michaelis-Menton and the Power nonlinear regression models developed in this study can be utilized to predict essential oil yield and composition of cumin seed at any given duration of DT and may also be useful to compare previous reports on cumin oil yield and composition. DT can be utilized to obtain cumin seed oil with improved antimalarial activity, improved antioxidant capacity, and with various compositions.