inTervieW - Green Cross Publishing

16
heRBal medicine
Adding spice to the
Christmas baking
What we eat at Christmas is not necessarily all bad
– Des Corrigan takes a closer look at the benefits of
yuletide spices
as soon as I opened the front door
I realised that it was THAT time of
the year. Given the foul weather
outside it was comforting to come
home to the fabulous smell of
the Christmas baking wafting out
from the kitchen. The welcoming aroma of the
mixed spices which the Higher Management was
using as part of her tried and trusted cake and
pudding recipes reminded me that the festive
season was just around the corner.
At first glance it is difficult to see anything
healthy in the way we celebrate Christmas in
Ireland with over-eating and drinking the norm.
However, the familiar scents of cinnamon, cloves,
nutmeg, ginger and allspice which make up what
is called mixed spice, got me thinking about
these and the other herbs and spices which form
part of our Christmas traditions. Given that these
herbs and spices all contain pharmacologically
active chemicals I wonder if in fact we might
be doing our bodies some good by ingesting
them alongside all the calories, saturated fat and
alcohol we consume over the Christmas holidays.
“
Sometimes a little
common-sense
is needed...no one has
suggested that pregnant
women avoid ginger
biscuits or Thai food.
CLove oiL – Pain kiLLer
Allspice is a peppercorn-like spice from a
Caribbean plant called Pimenta. While it is central
to Caribbean cooking its main medical effect
is on flatulence and given the impact of rich
Christmas food on the human digestive system,
maybe that is no bad thing to have in the diet.
The main chemical in allspice is eugenol which
is also the major component of the essential oil
of cloves. As is well known, that oil is used as a
dental pain reliever which may be as effective
as a benzocaine gel. There is good scientific
evidence for this and for the effectiveness of a
combination of clove oil with zinc oxide paste
in cases of dry socket inflammation after tooth
extraction. It is active against many bacteria
especially those associated with dental caries and
periodontal disease.
nuTMeg – naTuraL HigH?
nutmeg is a traditional component of eggnog
but does anyone actually drink eggnog at
Christmas nowadays? It is also a component
of mixed spice. The main chemical in Myristica
fragrans as it is known botanically is called
(with great originality) myristicin. This molecule
has a similar structure to MDMA (Ecstasy), the
main difference being that it has no nitrogen
atom. nutmeg has long had a reputation as a
hallucinogenic drug in US prisons where inmates
reportedly consumed several dessert spoons
of the powdered seed in order to get high.
Intoxication is likely to occur after ingestion of 5g
or more of nutmeg which is equivalent to about
1 to 2 mg of myristicin per kilo of body weight.
It has been suggested by way of explanation of
the psychotropic effects that myristicin might
be metabolised in the body to an amphetamine
derivative but extensive studies in humans have
shown no evidence of such metabolites.
ginger – anTi-eMeTiC
The remaining two ingredients in the mix are
the real ‘biggies’ in terms of their health impact.
Ginger has been used for centuries in cooking
and as a medicine because of its characteristic
smell and pungent (heat inducing) taste. In
recent times attention has focussed on its
anti-emetic effects and on its role in alleviating
arthritic complaints.
While the evidence for the latter shows
considerable promise it is not yet comparable
to that for the effect on nausea and vomiting.
Studies in animals show evidence of the ability
of ginger products to counteract vomiting. A
large number of RCTs confirm this in cases of
travel sickness with the added advantage that
ginger does not cause the drowsiness associated
with other travel sickness products which is
important if one has to drive on continental roads
after leaving the ferry. There is also high level
clinical evidence supporting the use of ginger in
morning sickness and in post-operative nausea
and vomiting.
Use in morning sickness raises the question
of the safety of the spice during pregnancy,
issue 10 volume 12 • novemBeR 2010
Dr Des Corrigan is the former Director
of the School of Pharmacy at TCD, and
won the lifetime Achievement Award
at the 2009 Pharmacist Awards.
He is the Irish representative on the
Scientific Committee of the European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction. He also currently chairs
the national Advisory Committee
on Drugs as well as the chair of the
Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products
Subcommittee of the Advisory
Committee on Human Medicines at
the Irish Medicines Board.
dr des CorrIGAN
with a number of commentators pointing out
that no formal safety studies during pregnancy
have been carried out and that effects on the
foetus cannot therefore be ruled out. There have
been follow-up evaluations during the morning
sickness trials which did not show any evidence
of abnormalities or increased risk of stillbirth or
miscarriages. Sometimes a little common-sense is
needed in these situations because most of the 1
million tons of ginger produced worldwide ends
up in confectionery, soft drinks and ethnic dishes.
And no one has suggested that pregnant women
avoid ginger biscuits or Thai food.
CinnaMon – For DiabeTes
It is the aroma of cinnamon bark and its more
widely available Chinese variety which evokes
Christmas for me. Medically the focus in recent
years has been on the anti-diabetic effects of
the oligomeric procyanidins in cinnamon rather
than the fragrant oil. Animal studies show that
these effects could lead to a reduction in diabetic
complications.
Human studies have given mixed results with
some RCTs showing reductions in fasting blood
glucose in type 2 diabetics of between 8 and
29 per cent. Other RCTs have not shown such
effects. It is likely that dosage is an issue as the
range has been from 1 to 10g of bark daily. This
is an awful lot of spice and certainly your average
cake would not get anywhere near that amount.
A 2007 review in the journal Pharmacotherapy
concluded that there was a modest effect on
glucose levels but that cinnamon should not
be recommended as a replacement for proven
lifestyle modifications, oral antidiabetics and
insulin but it did not say that supplementation
with a high quality product might not be a
worthwhile idea.
sPiCe Wars
Christmas is traditionally a time of peace and
goodwill so it is easy to forget that all of the
aforementioned spices are sourced from exotic
locations such as Grenada, Sri lanka, and
Zanzibar and that over the centuries the spice
trade was the cause of many wars costing many
lives with empires, colonies and huge fortunes
won and lost. Such concerns are however far
from most peoples minds as they tuck in to their
Christmas pudding and cake.