Culinary herbs and spices have been used as both food flavoring and food preservative agents for centuries. Moreover, due to their known and presumptive health benefits, herbs and spices have also been used in medical practices since ancient times. Some of the health effects attributed to herbs and spices include antioxidant, anti-microbial, and anti-inflammatory effects as well as potential protection against cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. While interest in herbs and spices as medicinal agents remains high and their use in foods continues to grow, there have been remarkably few studies that have attempted to track the dietary intake of herbs and spices and even fewer that have tried to find potential biomarkers of food intake (BFIs). The aim of the present review is to systematically survey the global literature on herbs and spices in an effort to identify and evaluate specific intake biomarkers for a representative set of common herbs and spices in humans. A total of 25 herbs and spices were initially chosen, including anise, basil, black pepper, caraway, chili pepper, cinnamon, clove, cumin, curcumin, dill, fennel, fenugreek, ginger, lemongrass, marjoram, nutmeg, oregano, parsley, peppermint and spearmint, rosemary, saffron, sage, tarragon, and thyme. However, only 17 of these herbs and spices had published, peer-reviewed studies describing potential biomarkers of intake. In many studies, the herb or spice of interest was administrated in the form of a capsule or extract and very few studies were performed with actual foods. A systematic assessment of the candidate biomarkers was also performed. Given the limitations in the experimental designs for many of the published studies, further work is needed to better evaluate the identified set of BFIs. Although the daily intake of herbs and spices is very low compared to most other foods, this important set of food seasoning agents should not be underestimated, especially given their potential benefits to human health.

中文翻译：

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草药和香料-基于人体干预研究的摄入生物标志物-系统评价。

数百年来，烹饪草药和香料已被用作食品调味剂和食品防腐剂。此外，由于其已知的和假定的健康益处，自古以来，草药和香料也已被用于医疗实践中。归因于草药和香料的一些健康影响包括抗氧化剂，抗微生物剂和抗炎作用，以及针对心血管疾病，神经退行性疾病，2型糖尿病和癌症的潜在保护作用。尽管人们对草药和香料作为药物的兴趣仍然很高，并且它们在食品中的使用继续增长，但是，很少有研究试图追踪饮食中草药和香料的摄入，很少有研究试图寻找食物的生物标志物摄入量（BFI）。本综述的目的是系统地调查有关草药和香料的全球文献，以识别和评估人类代表性的常见草药和香料的特定摄入生物标志物。最初总共选择了25种草药和香料，包括茴香，罗勒，黑胡椒，香菜，辣椒，肉桂，丁香，小茴香，姜黄素，莳萝，茴香，胡芦巴，姜，柠檬草，马郁兰，肉豆蔻，牛至，欧芹，薄荷和留兰香，迷迭香，藏红花，鼠尾草，龙蒿和百里香。但是，这些草药和香料中只有17种发表了经过同行评审的研究，这些研究描述了摄入的潜在生物标志物。在许多研究中，目标药草或香料是以胶囊或提取物的形式给药的，很少有关于实际食物的研究。还对候选生物标志物进行了系统评估。考虑到许多已发表研究的实验设计存在局限性，需要进一步开展工作以更好地评估已鉴定出的BFI集。尽管与大多数其他食物相比，草药和香料的每日摄入量很低，但不应低估这套重要的食品调味剂，尤其是考虑到它们对人体健康的潜在益处。