SpiceRx: an integrated resource for the health impacts of culinary spices and herbs

Abstract

Spices and herbs are key dietary ingredients used in cuisines across the world. They have been reported to be of medicinal value for a wide variety of diseases through a large body of biomedical investigations. Bioactive phytochemicals in these plant products form the basis of their therapeutic potential as well as adverse effects. A systematic compilation of empirical data involving these aspects of culinary spices and herbs could help unravel molecular mechanisms underlying their effects on health.SpiceRx provides a platform for exploring the health impact of spices and herbs used in food preparations through a structured database of tripartite relationships with their phytochemicals and disease associations. Starting with an extensive dictionary of culinary spices and herbs, their disease associations were text mined from MEDLINE, the largest database of biomedical abstracts, assisted with manual curation. This information was further combined with spice-phytochemical and phytochemical-disease associations. SpiceRx is an integrated repertoire of evidence-based knowledge pertaining to the health impacts of culinary spices and herbs, and facilitates their disease-specific culinary recommendations as well as exploration of molecular mechanisms underlying their health effects. Availability and Implementation:SpiceRx is available at http://cosylab.iiitd.edu.in/spicerx and supports all modern browsers. SpiceRx is implemented with Python web development framework Django and relational database PostgreSQL; the front-end was built using HTML, CSS,

A machine learning-integrated stepwise method to discover novel anti-obesity phytochemicals that antagonize the glucocorticoid receptor

“…In this study, we define phytochemicals as compounds of plant or food origin. Data regarding the phytochemicals and their sources were curated from open-source databases, including KNApSAcK, 44 FooDB, 45 Phenol-Explorer, 46 NPASS, 47 TCMID, 48 SpiceRX, 49 and DietRX. 50 After removing duplicates and small molecules with SMILES lengths less than ten characters, we obtained 84 650 phytochemicals and 45 367 sources.…”

Spices for taming the COVID-19 pandemic: Prospects and perspectives

“…Their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties are well documented (Gupta 2010;Yashin et al 2017;Jiang 2019). The health impacts of culinary spices and herbs have been compiled as a structured database -SpiceRx (https://cosylab.iiitd.edu.in/ spicerx/), and is available in the public domain (Rakhi et al 2018). Their vital role in enriching flavor, improving digestion, and supporting human health by way of their antioxidant and immune boosting properties is much discussed during this pandemic.…”

Relation of spice consumption with COVID-19 first wave statistics (infection, recovery and mortality) across India

“…[10] 'Spicerx', an extensive evidence-based database regarding spices, their constituents and health benefits has also been recently compiled. [11] Elsayed & Khan have analyzed COVID-19 records for first wave from 163 countries and revealed a clear correlation of its incidence, recovery rate and mortality rate with their spice consumption. [11] They have reported that total number of cases and mortality were lower in countries with high spice consumption.…”