Introductory Chapter: Mentha piperita (a Valuable Herb): Brief Overview (original) (raw)
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Chemical Composition and Biological Activities of Mentha Species
InTech eBooks, 2017
The genus Mentha L. (Lamiaceae) is distributed all over the world and can be found in many environments. Mentha species, one of the world's oldest and most popular herbs, are widely used in cooking, in cosmetics, and as alternative or complementary therapy, mainly for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders like flatulence, indigestion, nausea, vomiting, anorexia, and ulcerative colitis. Furthermore, it is well documented that the essential oil and extracts of Mentha species possess antimicrobial, fungicidal, antiviral, insecticidal, and antioxidant properties. The economic importance of mints is also evident; mint oil and its constituents and derivatives are used as flavoring agents throughout the world in food, pharmaceutical, herbal, perfumery, and flavoring industry. To provide a scientific basis for their traditional uses, several studies have been conducted to determine the chemical composition of mints and assess their biological activities. This chapter describes the therapeutic effects and uses of Mentha species and their constituents, particularly essential oils and phenolic compounds; some additional biological activities will also be considered.
Phytochemical Composition of Mint (Mentha), its Nutritional and Pharmacological Potential
Lahore Garrison University Journal of Life Sciences
Current studies were made to investigate the phytochemical, nutritional and medicinal importance of the mint plant. Mint plantgenerally contains menthol (40.7%), menthone (23.4%), methylacetate (0.7-23%), eucalyptol (1-13%), carveol (0.31%), piperitone (3.20%) and fiber (1.75%±0.1). The important nutritional contents include iron (0.262%), calcium (0.158%), phytic acid (0.00092%), proteins (0.6%), vitamin E (9.89±0.15%), ascorbic acid (0.96±0.06%) and axerophthol (0.426±0.05%). Mint is one of most familiar plants that iswidely cultivated throughout the planet. The plant finds immense importance in the pharmaceutical and food industry. The plant also finds colossal applicationsas antimicrobial,n anti-oxidant, anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory agent. The promising capability of the plant towards the field of therapeutic drugs development has been widely investigated.
The Wonderful Activities of the Genus Mentha: Not Only Antioxidant Properties
Molecules
Medicinal plants and their derived compounds have drawn the attention of researchers due to their considerable impact on human health. Among medicinal plants, mint (Mentha species) exhibits multiple health beneficial properties, such as prevention from cancer development and anti-obesity, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, and cardioprotective effects, as a result of its antioxidant potential, combined with low toxicity and high efficacy. Mentha species are widely used in savory dishes, food, beverages, and confectionary products. Phytochemicals derived from mint also showed anticancer activity against different types of human cancers such as cervix, lung, breast and many others. Mint essential oils show a great cytotoxicity potential, by modulating MAPK and PI3k/Akt pathways; they also induce apoptosis, suppress invasion and migration potential of cancer cells lines along with cell cycle arrest, upregulation of Bax and p53 genes, modulation of TNF, IL-6, IFN-γ, IL-8, ...
Phenolic Compounds and Biological Activity of Selected Mentha Species
Plants
Mentha species are widely used as food, medicine, spices, and flavoring agents. Thus, chemical composition is an important parameter for assessing the quality of mints. In general, the contents of menthol, menthone, eucalyptol, and limonene comprise one of the major parameters for assessing the quality of commercially important mints. Building further on the phytochemical characterization of the quality of Mentha species, this work was focused on the composition of phenolic compounds in methanolic extracts. Thirteen Mentha species were grown under the same environmental conditions, and their methanolic extracts were subjected to the LC–MS/MS (liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry) profiling of phenolics and the testing their biological activities, i.e., antioxidant and tyrosinase inhibition activities, which are important features for the cosmetic industry. The total phenolic content (TPC) ranged from 14.81 ± 1.09 mg GAE (gallic acid equivalents)/g for Mentha cervina to 58....
… Access Journal of …, 2010
Mints comprise a group of species of the genus Mentha belonging to the family Lamiaceae. The aerial parts of the herb on distillation yields essential oil containing a large number of aroma chemicals like menthol, menthone, isomenthone, menthofuran, carvone, linalool, linalyl acetate and piperitenone oxide which are used in pharmaceutical, food, flavour, cosmetics, beverages and allied industries. Mint oils are mainly produced in Argentina,
Chemical Composition and Therapeutic Effect of Mentha Species on Human Physiology
Scholars Bulletin, 2022
Plants are rich in phytochemical compounds that offer a source of dietary ingredients used to treat various ailments and problems. Among medicinal plants, mint (Mentha species) exhibits multiple health beneficial properties, such as prevention from cancer development and anti-obesity, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, and cardioprotective effects, as a result of its antioxidant potential, combined with low toxicity and high efficacy. Essential oils from mint have also been found to exert antibacterial activities. Using fresh mint and other herbs and spices in cooking can help a person add flavor while reducing their sodium and sugar intake.
2010
The essential oil of mint species are widely used in food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, growing throughout the world. Therefore, it is very important to know the chemical characteristics of the oil for economic use and enhanced performance of the end products. This study was carried out to determine mineral content, essential oil composition, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of essential oil of Mentha piperita (L.) and M. spicata (L.) (Lamiaceae). Chemical compositions of hydro-distilled essential oils obtained from mint species leaves were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). For antimicrobial activity, the disc diffusion tests were carried out on E. coli line ATCC25922, P. aeroginosa line ATCC27853, S. aureus line 25923, S. pyogenes line ATCC19615 and C. albicans line ATCC10231, and the antioxidant activity was performed by using DPPH radical-scavenging method. It was determined that essential oil of M. piperita and M. spicata contains menthol and carvone as major components, respectively. Treatment of 5 l, 10 l 15 l and 20 l of the oil exhibited strong antimicrobial activity against S. pyogenes, S. aureus and C. albicans and E. coli, except P. aeruginosa. The antioxidant activity of essential oil of mint species lowered DPPH activity compared to ascorbic acid. The results demonstrated that mint species essential oil has clearly good antimicrobial activity against test organisms and acceptable antioxidant activity.
The content of phenolic compounds in underground and aerial parts of different Mentha species
Acta Facultatis Pharmaceuticae Universitatis Comenianae, 2012
The content of phenolic compounds in underground and aerial parts of different Mentha speciesMentha L., the genus belonging to family Lamiaceae, subfamily Nepetoidae, has high commercial importance in the pharmacy as well as in food industry. Mints are available in all five continents and are important sources of each traditional medicine in the prevention and therapy of plenty of diseases. The most active compounds are essential oil and polyphenols. In the past the secondary metabolites in aerial parts were examined, but there is no evidence about the determination of secondary metabolites in underground parts of mints. Therefore the object of this work was to determine the content of phenolic compounds (total hydroxycinnamic derivatives (THD) and flavonoids) of methanol extracts of rhizomes of different Mentha L. and their comparison with leaves extracts. The contents of secondary metabolites were determined using spectrophotometric methods of Slovak Pharmacopoeia. We have detecte...
Phenotypic variation among Mentha spp
Pakistan Journal of Agricultural Research, 2012
The aim of the present study was to investigate the morphological diversity and relationship within 17 genotypes of mentha species. Different species of Mentha were collected from different ecological zones of the world. Great variation was observed in stem length with the coefficient of variation of 198.7% and standard deviation of 14.1. Among the 17 mint collection, nine special aromas was smelled including mint gum, strong camphoraceous, mint like, spicy, lemon, pungent, musky and acrid due to the presence of diverse bioactive compounds and essential oils. The present study may help to patronize the essential oil industry on latest scientific techniques. Like other herbs Mentha have diverse aromatic properties that can be explored for utilization in the industry and this information will be helpful for exploitation and development of natural agricultural resources on scientific grounds.
Drug Designing & Intellectual Properties International Journal, 2018
This work aims to evaluate the composition of the essential oils of certain mints grown in the region of Settat Morocco and to determine their chemical compositions. The essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation have an average yield of: 2.93% for Mentha pulegium, 1.23% for Mentha piperita and 0.91% for Mentha spicata. Analyzes of oils by GC-MS, showed the presence of several components including Menthone (42.97%) and Menthol (27.64%) are the major components of Mentha piperita, piperitone (31.27%) and piperitenone (22.98%) were obtained as the major compounds of Mentha pulegium, and so the main essential oil compounds of Mentha spicata are carvone (33.14%) and trans-Carveol (20.06%).