Advances in Active Ingredients and Functional Characteristics from Medicine and Food Homology Spices

Abstract

As medicine and food varieties and spices, Foeniculum vulgare, Cinnamomum cassia, Zanthoxylum bungeanum, Zingiber officinale, Curcuma longa and Crocus sativus not only improve the quality of food consumption, but also have health benefits. They are widely used in fields such as food, health products and medicine. The main active ingredients of these six kinds of spices, such as terpenoids, phenols and glycosides are reviewed in this paper. Their main functional characteristics, such as anti-oxidant, anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory and analgesic, anti-cancer, anti-depressant, anti-obesity are further summarized. At the same time, their functional mechanism, such as regulating antioxidant balance system, disrupting the integrity of microbial cells, inhibition of pro-inflammatory factor levels, regulating immune cytokines, regulating related signaling pathways, promoting adipocyte differentiation are emphatically analyzed, which provide reference for the development and application of medicine and food homology spices functional products.

Keywords

• medicine and food homology
• spices
• active ingredients
• functional characteristics