Herbs in Health Management
Raj K. Keservani, Anil K. Sharma, Rajesh K. Kesharwani in Nutraceuticals and Dietary Supplements, 2020
It is a perennial plant. When grown in favorable conditions, it can attain a height up to 4 m. It bears dark green color leaves. The fruits are capsules having three sides, and each chamber has two rows of seeds. The plant consists of the dried ripe fruits of Elettaria cardamomum belonging to family Zingiberaceae. Theophrastus described about cardamom in the 4th century BC. India is trading this herb since 1000 AD to Western countries. The plant is indigenous to South India. In India, it is cultivated on a commercial scale in Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. In 1965, the Cardamom Act was passed by the Government of Karnataka to encourage the cultivation of cardamom in the state. It is also naturalized in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Malaysia. Guatemala is the world’s largest producer of this herb. Naturally, the fruits are green to yellow and possess strong aromatic odor and taste. The seeds are hard, round, and brown. Chemical analysis of the seeds revealed that seeds contain 2%–8% of volatile oil. Cineole is the chief active chemical of the volatile oil. The other chemical constituents present in the oil are α-pinene, β-pinene, myrcene, α-phellandrene, limonene, 1,8-cineole, p-cymene, terpinolene, linalool, linalyl acetate, terpinen-4-oil, α-terpineol, α-terpineol acetate, nerol, geraniol, methyl eugenol, and trans-nerolidol (Korikontimath et al., 1999). Seeds also have a significant amount of fixed oil, starch, and proteins.
Spices as Eco-friendly Microbicides: From Kitchen to Clinic
Mahendra Rai, Chistiane M. Feitosa in Eco-Friendly Biobased Products Used in Microbial Diseases, 2022
Cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum), the ‘Queen of spices’ is a perennial aromatic plant traditionally used as a culinary ingredient, commonly cultivated in southern India, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Guatemala. This plant is considered as an important source of flavonoids, alkaloids, terpenoids, anthocyanins and phenolic compounds. Cardamom has been used for the treatment of several disorders, including asthma, indigestion and congestive jaundice. It possesses various pharmacological properties such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and antimicrobial activities. Its fruit and seed extracts prepared by supercritical fluid extraction with carbon dioxide exert an antibacterial effect against major periodontal pathogens Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Porphyromonas gingivalis, and Prevotella intermedia (Souissi et al. 2020).
Potential of Spices As Medicines and Immunity Boosters
Amit Baran Sharangi, K. V. Peter in Medicinal Plants, 2023
Cardamom of commerce is the dried seed capsule of a group of plants belonging to the family Zingiberaceae. Small cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum Maton), native to India, is known as the ‘Queen of spices’ is cultivated commonly in the southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. Kazemi et al. (2017) have investigated supplementation effects of cardamom in obese pre-diabetic women (population size of 80), with high lipid levels in blood, with regards to their inflammation and oxidative stress, thus reducing complications associated with it. Cardamom is added as an enhancer of immune responses, in the pharmaceutical industry, to drugs which are carminative, stomachic. It is a common home remedy for indigestion, morning sickness, oral odor, bronchial infections, skin diseases, inflammations, itching, and poisons.
Fumigant toxicity of three Satureja species on tomato leafminers, Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae)
Published in Toxin Reviews, 2021
Essential oils of different plants have various effects on an insect species. Here, satureja oils showed medium effects on T. absoluta larvae in comparison to the other experiments. Goudarzvande Chegini et al. (2018) assessed the fumigant toxicity of Zataria multiflora Boiss essential oil on different stages of the tomato leafminer. LC50 values for second instar larvae inside and outside leaf, were 4.44 and 1.26 μlL−1(air), respectively. When the essential oil from cardamom, Elettaria cardamomum (L.) Maton was examined on the same stage of the larvae already tested, LC50 for the larvae inside and outside the leaves was 7.88 and 1.55 μl L−1(air), respectively (Goudarzvand Chegini and Abbasipour 2017). Zarrad et al. (2017) examined the fumigant toxicity of Citrus aurantium L. essential oil against Tuta absoluta larvae and determined LC50 10.65 μl L−1(air). However, the fumigant toxicity of Citrus limon (L.) essential oils against the third instar larvae of T. absoluta was less toxic (LC50 24.33 μl L−1(air)) (Zarrad et al. 2015).
The predictive utility of the plant phylogeny in identifying sources of cardiovascular drugs
Published in Pharmaceutical Biology, 2018
Emily Guzman, Jeanmaire Molina
All four species of the unrelated Zingiberaceae family demonstrated CCB effect. Thai black ginger, Kaempferia parviflora, when given to rats, had a vasorelaxant effect that was achieved by reducing Ca2+ influx due to its 5,7-dimethoxyflavone content (Anwar et al. 2016). This was also the case for the confamilial cardamom, Elettaria cardamomum (Anwar et al. 2016). The methanolic fraction of the essential oil of Alpinia zerumbet, folklorically used in Brazil to treat hypertension, was also shown to inhibit calcium influx promoting hypotension (da Cunha et al. 2013). Extracts of common ginger, Zingiber officinale also lowered blood pressure and possessed cardiodepressant activity via the same mechanism (Ghayur and Gilani 2005). The common mechanism of CCB among these species of Zingiberaceae invites investigation of other species within the family for this activity, as predicted by the phylogeny. As a proof of concept, when other species were searched for CCB effects, Curcuma longa (turmeric) came up positive due to its constituent molecule cyclocurcumin (Kim et al. 2017), as well as several other species within Zingiberaceae (Gonçalves et al. 2014). This reinforces the utility of the phylogeny in drug discovery, in predicting pharmacological mechanisms of novel and unexplored species based on their evolutionary relationships.
Cardamom fruits as a green resource for facile synthesis of gold and silver nanoparticles and their biological applications
Published in Artificial Cells, Nanomedicine, and Biotechnology, 2018
Veronika Soshnikova, Yeon Ju Kim, Priyanka Singh, Yue Huo, Josua Markus, Sungeun Ahn, Verónica Castro-Aceituno, Jongpyo Kang, Mohan Chokkalingam, Ramya Mathiyalagan, Deok Chun Yang
Wild cardamom such as Amomum villosum and true cardamom such as Elettaria cardamomum is an important non-timber forest product that has a very high value. However, as a result of lack of scientific research, principally in taxonomy, the scientific knowledge is poor [10]. Amomum villosum is a perennial herb; 60–70% of total yield is produced in Xishuangbanna in Yunnan Province, China. The fruits of these plants have been used as spices in Asian cuisines and as herbal medicines to treat stomachache, anorexia and dysentery in humans. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), these fruits are commonly known as Shan Ren [11]. Similarly, E. cardamomum has been cultivated and naturalized in South Eastern countries, Sri Lanka, India and Central America [12,13]. In virtue of these pharmacological activities, we aim to synthesize Cardamom fruits functionalized gold (FA-AuNps) and silver nanoparticles (FA-AgNps) with positive biological applications.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Elettaria Cardamomum
- Flavoring
- Species
- Sulettaria