Data-driven analysis of biomedical literature suggests broad-spectrum benefits of culinary herbs and spices

Abstract

Spices and herbs are key dietary ingredients used across cultures worldwide. Beyond their use as flavoring and coloring agents, the popularity of these aromatic plant products in culinary preparations has been attributed to their antimicrobial properties. Last few decades have witnessed an exponential growth of biomedical literature investigating the impact of spices and herbs on health, presenting an opportunity to mine for patterns from empirical evidence. Systematic investigation of empirical evidence to enumerate the health consequences of culinary herbs and spices can provide valuable insights into their therapeutic utility. We implemented a text mining protocol to assess the health impact of spices by assimilating, both, their positive and negative effects. We conclude that spices show broad-spectrum benevolence across a range of disease categories in contrast to negative effects that are comparatively narrow-spectrum. We also implement a strategy for disease-specific culinary recommendations of spices based on their therapeutic tradeoff against adverse effects. Further by integrating spice-phytochemical-disease associations, we identify bioactive spice phytochemicals potentially involved in their therapeutic effects. Our study provides a systems perspective on health effects of culinary spices and herbs with applications for dietary recommendations as well as identification of phytochemicals potentially involved in underlying molecular mechanisms.

Changes in the Content of Phenolic Compounds and Biological Activity in Traditional Mexican Herbal Infusions with Different Drying Methods

“…Therefore, studies have focused on the characterization of phenolic and other phytochemical compounds with biological activity, which are supplied to human organisms as food components or as specific preventive pharmaceutical products, and can improve glucose metabolism, as well as the general health of diabetic patients [12,13]. Herbs and spices are generally used as infusions or as condiments in foods, are considered nutraceuticals concerning their nutritional, medicinal and therapeutic properties and, on the other hand, they also improve the taste of food, prolong shelf life by producing an antimicrobial activity [14,15]. The leaves of herbs and spices are processed before they are ready to be packaged.…”

Intake of Dietary Salicylates from Herbs and Spices among Adult Polish Omnivores and Vegans

“…There is a growing body of evidence that a diet rich in bioactive compounds from herbs and spices has the ability to reduce the risk of chronic diseases, including cancer, inflammatory diseases, cardiometabolic diseases, atherosclerosis and diabetes [11][12][13][14]. The use of herbs and spices in regular meals may have beneficial effects not only on cardio-vascular function, the initiation and development of atherosclerosis and reduction of the risk of CVD (Cardiovascular Disease), but also on the modulation of gastro-intestinal function, the reduction of chronic inflammation, and even on slimming and optimization of skeletal muscle performance [3,15,16].…”

Utilization of text mining as a big data analysis tool for food science and nutrition

“…Anbarkhan, Stanier, and Sharp (2018) used text mining to obtain connections between obesity and herbal plants in the Arabic region. Rakhi, Tuwani, Mukherjee, and Bagler (2018) recognized the health benefits of culinary herbs and spices through literature mining. Chaix, Deléger, Bossy, and Nédellec (2019) applied text mining to a big collection of PubMed scientific paper abstracts to identify ecological diversity and the origin of microbial presence in food.…”