Spices and herbs: Potential antiviral preventives and immunity boosters during COVID‐19

Abstract

A severe acute respiratory syndrome is an unusual type of contagious pneumonia that is caused by SARS coronavirus. At present, the whole world is trying to combat this coronavirus disease and scientific communities are putting rigorous efforts to develop vaccines. However, there are only a few specific medical treatments for SARS‐CoV‐2. Apart from other public health measures taken to prevent this virus, we can boost our immunity with natural products. In this article, we have highlighted the potential of common spices and herbs as antiviral agents and immunity boosters. A questionnaire‐based online survey has been conducted on home remedies during COVID‐19 among a wide range of peoples (n‐531) of different age groups (13–68 years) from various countries. According to the survey, 71.8% of people are taking kadha for combating infection and boosting immunity. Most people (86.1%) think that there is no side effect of kadha while 13.9% think vice versa. A total of 93.6% of people think that spices are helpful in curing coronavirus or other viral infection as well as boosting immunity. Most people are using tulsi drops, vitamin C, and chyawanprash for boosting their immunity. Therefore, we conclude from the survey and available literature that spices and herbs play a significant role against viral infections.

Potential Immunomodulatory Properties of Biologically Active Components of Spices Against SARS-CoV-2 and Pan β-Coronaviruses

“…Over the years, research into their beneficial health effects has gained momentum as spices aid in preventing and treating various chronic diseases (Bi et al, 2017;Kunnumakkara et al, 2018). To date, several works have been published associating spices with disease severity and mortality in COVID-19 (Gupta et al, 2020;Devan et al, 2021;Kunnumakkara et al, 2021;Rajan et al, 2021;Singh et al, 2021;Vicidomini et al, 2021), but the possible mechanisms of immune-modulatory action of spices remain elusive.…”

Roll of Spices in Controlling Microbial Infection and in Modulation of the Immune System

“…Black pepper is famous as the king of spices [1], [17]. It belongs to family Piperaceae [3]. It is found in India, Sumatra, Indonesia regions [18][19][20].…”

“…Clove belongs to the family Mirtaceae, is known for its action against oral bacteria [3]. Native of Indonesia, but it is cultivated across the world.…”

“…Cloves act as larvicidal agent to resist dengue, acts as an analgesic for joint pains, toothache and other serious health problem in tropical countries [60], [61]. One of the important bioactive com-pound of clove is eugenol which exhibits broad antimicrobial activities ranging from Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Candida albicans, Salmonella typhimurium, Staphylococcus aureus to Rhizopus nigricans and Aspergillus niger [3], [62]. According to World Health Organization (WHO), humans can uptake clove daily 2.5mg/kg body weight [63].…”

“…Ethanolic and aqueous extracts of clove have antioxidant activity, hydrogen donating ability, metal chelating ability and scavenging of free radicals, hydrogen peroxide and superoxide [64]. Reports suggested that eugeniin, extract of Syzygium aromaticum possess inhibitory action against the HSV-1 DNA polymerase [3].…”