Older patients are vulnerable to adverse hospital events related to frailty. SPICES, a common screening protocol to identify risk factors in older patients, alerts nurses to initiate care plans to reduce the probability of patient harm. However, there is little published validating the association between SPICES and measures of frailty and adverse outcomes. This paper used data from a prospecti...

Antioxidants are substances that prevent oxidation of other compounds or neutralize free radicals. Spices and herbs are rich sources of antioxidants. They have been used in food and beverages to enhance flavor, aroma and color. Due to their excellent antioxidant activity, spices and herbs have also been used to treat some diseases. In this review article, the chemical composition and antioxidan...

Background: The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies has increased in the United States, but little is known about consumers' perceptions of use of such therapies. The purpose of this study was to assess knowledge, perceptions, and predictors of spice use for health promotion among adults in the Midwestern US. Methods: UUsing a cross-sectional study design, adults in th...

Although spices have been important for centuries in food preparation throughout the world, patterns of spice use differ considerably among cultures and countries. What factors underlie these differences? Why are spices used at all? To investigate these questions, we quantified the frequency of use of 43 spices in the meat-based cuisines of the 36 countries for which we could locate traditional...

Spices have long been recognized for their digestive stimulant action. Several spices are also employed in medicinal preparations against digestive disorders in traditional and Indian systems of medicine. Earlier reports on the digestive stimulant action of spices are largely empirical; only in recent years, this beneficial attribute of spices has been authenticated in exhaustive animal studies...

Selected herbs and spices imported into Australia are treated with ethylene oxide (EtO) to control microbial contamination. Currently, three spices, namely paprika, pepper and cinnamon are routinely tested by AQIS for Salmonella. If the spices fail to meet the required standard, the importer must re-export or decontaminate the shipment – most chose to decontaminate the shipment with ethylene ox...

India is the land of spices from time immemorial, and holds the premier position in terms of the number of spices grown, the area under cultivation, and the volume of spices produced. One among the spices is turmeric, an integral component of the cultural, religious and culinary practices in the country. The total acreage under turmeric in India has been estimated variously from 60,000 to 100,0...

Billing and Sherman proposed the antimicrobial hypothesis to explain the worldwide spice use pattern. The present study explored whether two antimicrobial ingredients (i.e. spices and vinegar) are used in ways consistent with the antimicrobial hypothesis. Four specific predictions were tested: meat-based recipes would call for more spices/vinegar than vegetable-based recipes; summer recipes wou...

Herbs and spices have been traditionally used for prevention and cure of many diseases. Hence, the present study was aimed to investigate the effects of aqueous and alcoholic extract of four different spices (asafoetida, ginger, cinnamon and cardamom) extracts on human breast adenocarcinoma cell line (MCF) and HEP-G2 cancer cell lines through in-vitro growth inhibitory assay. Both aqueous and a...

Spices are traditionally known to have digestive stimulant action and to cure digestive disorders. In this study, the protective effect of dietary spices with respect to activities of antioxidant enzymes in gastric and intestinal mucosa was examined. Groups of Wistar rats were fed for 8 weeks with diets containing black pepper (0.5%), piperine (0.02%), red pepper (3.0%), capsaicin (0.01%), and ...