BACKGROUND Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is a common but very expensive herbal medicine. As an important traditional medicine, it has an outstanding effect in treating irregular and painful menstruation. Recently, the over-demand tendency of saffron results in an unusual phenomenon in the medicinal markets. Adulterants and saffron-like substitutes are intentionally mixed into medicinal markets an...

OBJECTIVE Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the respiratory airways distinguished by edema and infiltration of inflammatory immune cells. To test our hypothesis about the anti-inflammatory effect of saffron, we examined effects of Crocus sativus (C. sativus) extract as a prophylactic anti-inflammatory agent in sensitized rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS To induce experimental asthma, rat...

In this study, the effect of Crocus sativus (saffron) was studied on male erectile dysfunction (ED). Twenty male patients with ED were followed for ten days in which each morning they took a tablet containing 200mg of saffron. Patients underwent the nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT) test and the international index of erectile function questionnaire (IIEF-15) at the start of the treatment and a...

Spices have been widely used as food flavorings and folk medicines for thousands of years. Numerous studies have documented the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects of spices, which might be related to prevention and treatment of several cancers, including lung, liver, breast, stomach, colorectum, cervix, and prostate cancers. Several spices are potential sources for prev...

Objective: In the present study, the effects of aqueous saffron extract (Crocus sativus L.) on the acquisition and reinstatement of morphine-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) in mice were investigated. Materials and Methods: Subcutaneous administration of morphine (40 mg/kg for four days) produced place preference. Intraperitoneal administration of aqueous extract (40 and 80 mg/kg for ...

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is one of the world’s most valuable condiments, whose dried stigmas have been used since antiquity for culinary and medicinal purposes. The ethnobotanical data reveal that the plant and stigma extracts have many medicinal properties. On the basis of ethnobotanical data, lots of research has been done to determine the nutraceutical potential of saffron. The studies re...

Saffron, an extract from Crocus sativus, has been largely used in traditional medicine for its antiapoptotic and anticarcinogenic properties. In this work, we investigate the effects of safranal, a component of saffron stigmas, in attenuating retinal degeneration in the P23H rat model of autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa. We demonstrate that administration of safranal to homozygous P23H l...

Obesity is associated with various diseases, particularly diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis and heart disease. Research on possibilities of herbal extracts and isolated compounds from natural products for treating obesity has an upward trend. Saffron (Crocus Sativus L. Iridaceae) is a source of plant polyphenols/carotenoids, used as important spice and food colorant in different parts of t...