Effects of Dietary Herbs and Spices

1. Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi110 029. Introduction Whenever the curiosity of the present day investigator probes into the past and brings to light even fragmentary information on the ingenious methods of our ancestors, it makes a fascinating study. In India, reference to the curative properties of some herbs in the Rigveda ( though very brief) seem to be the earliest records of use of plants in medicine. Far more detailed account is available in the Atharva veda. The period of Rigveda is assumed to be between 3500-1800 B.C. After the Vedas there is no information on the development of this science in India for a period of about 1000 years. Then came the two most important works on the Indian system of medicine, Charak Samhita and Susruta Samhita. India, with its wide climatic conditions and topographical features, is perhaps unrivalled in the world and a wide variety of spices of herbs can be grown with ease. With these factors, naturally the Indian medicinal flora is one of the richest and cosmopolitan one with high therapeutic potentialities. By diligent efforts it is possible to utilize the herbal health, for the utmost advantage to humans. Efforts have been made to locate the herbs, identify and study them by using contemporary technological developments with the prime idea of rediscovering comprehensive utility of our ancient heritage and translate it into the terms of reference and application to the modern paradigm of scientific nutrition and human health. The science of nutrition forms a significant part of the study of preventive medicine. Dietary regulation is an important component of treatment of diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis constipation and other ailments associated with overweight and cancer. Research has been going on all over the world to find a desirable diet with ideal features: the blood sugar should not be raised too high after the diet, glucose tolerance should be improved and favourable lipoprotein levels should be achieved. Spices are dried parts of aromatic plants usually originating in the tropics. Like herbs they provided the flavours to dishes in the ancient world and were highly prized, and the spice trade between Europe and the East led to many of the great voyages of exploration including the “discovery” of America. As with herbs, a range of spices has been and is used particularly in the Middle and Far East where the plants are indigenous. The spices owe their properties to essential oils and a range of astringent substances. These include many biologically active substances which at higher levels of consumption can exhibit toxicity. Two decades back it was considered that though spices themselves contain significant concentrations of some vitamins, the normal levels of use in foods make their nutritional contribution negligible. However recently encouraging data has been compiled to include spices also as nutrients and “nutraceuticals.”