Naturally Isolated Compounds from Spices and Herbs and their Medicinal Uses

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<div&gt;Spices and herbs have a long history of medicinal uses. They include&lt;/div&gt;<div&gt;turmeric, basil, mace, cinnamon, ginger, etc. [1]. Ginseng and Ginkgo biloba are&lt;/div&gt;<div&gt;reportedly used to improve stamina and cognitive performance. Spices are used in all&lt;/div&gt;<div&gt;the countries for different purposes, such as in cooking and medicines, etc. Spice is a&lt;/div&gt;<div&gt;seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for coloring, flavoring,</div&gt;<div&gt;and preserving food. Herbs are the leaves, flowers, stems from plants used for flavoring&lt;/div&gt;<div&gt;or as garnishing. Medicinal and aromatic plants have also been used therapeutically to&lt;/div&gt;<div&gt;improve the health and wellbeing of animals; most were used for prophylactic purposes&lt;/div&gt;<div&gt;and to improve the growth rate and feed conversion ratio efficiency [2, 3]. The&lt;/div&gt;<div&gt;alternatives to antibiotics as growth stimulators from the group of prebiotics, probiotics,</div&gt;<div&gt;organic acids, essential oils, medicinal plants, or parts of plants, such as thyme, basil,</div&gt;<div&gt;oregano, pepper and plenty of others, are numerous [2]. This chapter includes a wide&lt;/div&gt;<div&gt;variety of isolated compounds, such as phenolic compounds and flavanoids present in&lt;/div&gt;<div&gt;spices, which are now experimentally documented to possess antioxidant, antiinflammatory,</div&gt;<div&gt;antimutagenic and anticarcinogenic activities. It also includes a list of&lt;/div&gt;<div&gt;spices compounds that are experimentally evidenced to control cardiovascular diseases,</div&gt;<div&gt;diabetes, cataract, cancer, etc.</div&gt;