09/04/2020
FENNEL seeds Benefits
I suggest coronavirus cure this seeds, reason Hazrat Muhammad Rasulullah Sallallahu salam
say This is the medicine for all diseases except death.
Chemical composition:
composition of fennel varies with morphotype, source, climate and harvesting stage. Every 100 g edible portion of fennel seeds contain on average: 8.8 g water; 15.8 g protein; 14.9 g fat; 36.6 g carbohydrate; 15.7 g fibre; and 8.2 g ash (containing 1.2 g Ca, 19 mg Fe, 1.7 g K, 385 mg Mg, 88 mg Na, 487 mg P and 28 mg Zn). Every 100 g contains: vitamin A (135 IU); niacin (6 mg); thiamine (0.41 mg); and riboflavin (0.35 mg); with an energy value of about 1440 kJ. The seeds contain mucilage, sugars, starch, tannin, essential oil and fixed oil (the main components of the fixed oil being petroselenic, oleic, linoleic and palmitic acids (Bernath et al., 1994)). The variety and quantity of vitamins contained is variable: folates, 270 mg/kg; vitamin B3, 6.4 mg/kg; vitamin C, 8.7–340 mg/kg. Fennel contains potassium (4.24–5.85 g/kg), the most abundant mineral by far, with low amounts of phosphorus (500 mg/kg), calcium (5.6–363 mg/kg), magnesium (8.2–389 mg/k) and sodium (7.7–512 mg/kg) (Koudela and Petrikova, 2008).The principal constituents of the essential oil extracted are anethole (50–60 %) and fenchone (15–20 %) (Fig. 14.1). The essential oil extracted is mainly composed of (E)-anethole, (Z)-anethole and α-thujone (Mata et al., 2007). Singh et al. (1990) reported 20 compounds in fennel essential oil of which 18 constituted 96.04 % of the total essential oil, the major components being anethole (68 %), limonene (11 %), fenchone (3.7 %) and a few others. Approximately 45 constituents have been deter-mined from fennel seed oil, the main constituents being trans-anethole (60–65 %, but up to 90 %), fenchone (2–20 %), estragole (methyl chavicol), limonene, myrcene, liomonene, α-and β-phellandrene, γ-terpinene, terpineol, cis-ocimene and γ-fenchone. The dried distillation residue of fennel seeds contains 14–22 % protein and 12–18 % fat and is suitable for use as stock feed (Weiss, 2002).Moura et al. (2005) determined global yields of volatile oil for fennel fruits ana-lysed using CO2 super critical fluid extraction and found that yield varied from 3–12 %; the major compounds identified in the extracts were trans-anethole and fenchone. Fruits contained 15–30 % fixed oil and up to 12 % volatile essential oil. The fruit also contained flavonoids, iodine, kaempferols, umbelliferone and stigmas-terol and ascorbic acid; traces of aluminium, barium, lithium, copper, manganese, silicon and titanium were also found.Fatty acids (palmitic, palmitoleic, stearic, oleic, linoleic and linolenic acid) were also detected. Parejo et al. (2004a,b) identified caffeoylquinic and dicaffeoylquinic acids, flavonoids and rosmarinic acid among the ten main antioxidant phenolic compounds obtained from bitter fennel, using a simple high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) technique. Distilled fennel was found to contain a higher proportion of antioxidant phenolic compounds than non-distilled plant material.Gámiz-Gracia and De Castro (2000) devised a sub-critical extractor equipped with a three-way inlet valve and an on/off outlet valve to perform sub-critical water extractions in a continuous manner for the isolation of fennel essential oil. This extraction method is superior to both hydrodistillation and dichloromethane manual extraction in terms of speed, efficiency, cleanliness and the possibility of manipulat-ing the composition of the extract. The major compounds in supercritical CO2 and hydrodistilled extracts of ground fennel seeds are trans-anethole (68.6–75.0 and 62.0 %, respectively), methylchavicol (5.09–9.10 and 4.90 %, respectively) and fen-chone (8.4–14.7 and 20.3 %, respectively) (Damjanović et al., 2005).Muckensturm et al. (1997) characterized different populations of F. vulgare con-taining 10-nonacosanone as a specific chemical marker. F. vulgare subsp. piperitum (bitter fennel) is characterized by the presence of rotundifolone. p-Butylanisole is present in traces in fennel containing large amounts of trans-anethole. A chemo-taxonomic classification based on the amount of estragole, trans-anethole, limonene and fenchone was also proposed for the different varieties and chemotypes of F. vulgare subsp. vulgare. Miraldi (1999) reported inverse proportions of trans-ane-thole and estragole, suggesting a common precursor. A chemotypic characterization of populations of fennel based on the occurrence of glycosides was attempted by Harborne and Saleh (1971) and confirmed the presence of quercetin 3-arabinoside in the leaves of fennel and three other flavonol glycosides: kaempferol 3-arabino-side, kaempferol 3-glucuronide and quercetin 3-glucuronide.Bitter fennel contains 50 % trans-anethole, 10–20 % fenchone (which contributes to the bitter flavour), 10–30 % limonene, 3–11 % α-phellandrene, 12–16 % α-pinene, with α-thujene, β-pinene, estragole (methyl chavicol), myrcene, and 1,8-cineole. The sweeter variety has 50–80 % anethole, little (5 %) or no fenchone, slightly higher levels of limonene with estragole, safrole and pinene (Raghavan, 2006). Turkish bitter fennel is rich in methyl chavicol (47.09 %), as well as limonene (29.07 %), fenchone (13.43 %), α-terpinene (2.5 %), fenchyl acetate (exo) (1.95 %) and cis-β-ocimene (Özcan and Akgül, 2001).The fixed oil primarily contains petroselinic acid (60 %), oleic acid (22 %), linoleic acid (14 %) and palmitic acid (4 %) (Singh et al., 1990). Harborne et al. (1969) were the first to report that the psychotropic aromatic ether myristicin occurs in the seed of cultivated fennel but is absent from wild collections of this species.Essential oil taken from different plant parts and between different regional cultivars tends to be very variable (Akgül, 1986; Karaca and Kevseroglu, 1999; Kruger and Hammer, 1999; Piccaglia and Marotti, 2001). In European and Argen-tinean types of F. vulgare, limonene concentration in the whole plant does not exceed 10 %, but α-phellandrene is 23–25 % in leaves and 22–28 % in stems. By contrast, the limonene content in young leaves and stems of European and Indian types of F. dulce ranges from 37–40 % and 28–34 %, respectively, decreasing with age. The α-phellandrene content is low (1–4 %) and remains constant with age. Fruits contain condensed glucides, phytosterols (β-sitosterols, stigmasterol), coumarin, stragol (5 %) and traces of α-pinene, limonene, mircene, fenchone, canfene, sabinene, β-mircene, β-pinene, α-feladrene and α-terpinene, whilst its leaves contain flavonoids and traces of essential oils. Notable differences have been recorded in the compo-nents of the ‘vulgare’ and ‘dulce’ strains (Kresanek 1989;Simandi et al., 1999).The yield and composition of the volatile fraction of the pentane extracts of leaves, stems and seeds of F. vulgare Mill. were studied by Guillén and Manzanos (1996). The yield obtained from seeds was much higher than that obtained from leaves and stems. The volatile fraction of the pentane extract of the latter two has a higher concentration of terpene hydrocarbons and a smaller concentration of oxygenated terpene hydrocarbons than that of the seeds. Sesquiterpenes and the antioxidant vitamin E have been detected in the leaves and petroselinic acid in the seeds. Saturated aliphatic hydrocarbons with 25 or more carbon atoms have been found in all the plant parts.Akgül and Bayrak (1988) reported the volatile oil composition of various parts of bitter fennel (F. vulgare var. vulgare) growing as wild Turkish plants, investigated by gas – liquid chromatography. The major component of all oil samples was trans-anethole (29.70, 37.07, 54.22, 61.08 and 64.71 % in leaf, stem, flowering umbel, flower and fruit, respectively). The other main components were α-pinene (in leaf, stem, flowering umbel and flower), α-phellandrene (in leaf, stem and flowering umbel) and fenchone (fruit oil). The volatile oils of flowering umbels, flower and fruit con-tained high amounts of oxygenated compounds, in gradually increasing percentages. The root essential oil contains (on average) α-pinene (1.0 %), p-cymene (0.3 %), β-fenchylacetate (1.0 %), trans-anethole (1.6 %), eugenol (0.2 %), myristicin (3 %) and dillapiole (87 %). By comparison, the root and bulbous stem base of Florence fennel contains less than 1 % of dillapiole but 70 % of trans-anethole, giving a very different taste. The herb contains 1.00–2.55 % essential oil, up to 75 % of which is trans-anethole.Barros et al. (2009) observed different levels of antioxidant potential for shoots, leaves, stems and inflorescense, particularly composition of ascorbic acid, tocopher-ols and phenolics. Shoots were also found to have high radical-scavenging activity and lipid peroxidation inhibition capacity.The synthesis of the major essential oil components, estragole and anethole, has been elucidated. Cell-free extracts from bitter fennel tissues display O-methyltrans-ferase activities able to methylate chavicol and t-anol in vitro to produce estragole and t-anethole, respectively, using S-adenosyl-L-methionine as a methyl group donor (Gross et al., 2002). An association between estragole accumulation and chavicol O-methyltransferase activity during the development of different plant parts was found. Young leaves had greater O-methyltransferase activity than old leaves. In developing fruits, O-methyltransferase activity levels increased until the wasting stage and then decreased drastically. The metabolism of l-endo-fenchol to d-fenchone in fennel was studied by Croteau and Felton (1980), whilst Croteau et al. (1980a) reported a soluble enzyme preparation from the leaves of fennel which catalysed the cation-dependent cyclization of both geranyl pyrophosphate and neryl pyrophosphate to the bicyclic rearranged monoterpene l-endo-fenchol. Croteau et al. (1980b) found that (+)-(1S)-fenchone, an irregular bicyclicmonoterpene ketone thought to be derived via rearrangement of a bicyclic precursor, was one of the major terpenoids of the volatile oil of fennel. They could provide strong evidence that fenchone was derived by the cyclization of geranyl pyrophosphate or neryl pyrophosphate to endo-fenchol, followed by dehydrogenation of this bicyclic alcohol, and demonstrate the biosynthesis of a rearranged monoterpene in a cell-free system. Croteau et al. (1989) elaborated on the biosynthesis of the monoterpene (geranyl pyrophosphate) in fennel: (−)-endo-fenchol cyclase catalyses the conversion of geranyl pyrophosphate to (−)-endo-fenchol by a process thought to involve the initial isomerization of the substrate to the tertiary allylic isomer, linalyl pyrophos-phate, and the subsequent cyclization of this bound intermediate.
Pharmacology:
Constituents: The major constituent of fennel oil is anethole. Other constituents include alpha pinene, beta myrcene, beta pinene, bitter fenchone, camphene, estragole (methyl-chavicol), fenchone, limonene, p-cymen, and safrole.
Fennel is a rich source of beta-carotene and vitamin C, as well as calcium, magnesium, iron, and lesser amounts of other metal cations.
Anti-carcinogenic and anti-inflammatory effects: Anethole's effects may be mediated by modulation of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) - induced cellular responses. Anethole may interfere with TNF signaling and lead to the activation of NF-kappaB, AP-1, JNK, MEK, and apoptosis. Anethole may suppress NF-kappaB-dependent gene expression induced by TNF. NF-kappaB controls the expression of some genes involved in carcinogenesis and inflammation.
Estragole is a natural constituent of a number of plants including fennel. Estragole is a procarinogen but has minimal carcinogenic risk. To reach full toxicity, estragole must be activated by liver enzymes. Fortunately, other liver enzymes inactivate it, limiting liver damage.
Anticoagulant effects: Ferrula communis, giant fennel, contains coumarin derivatives that competitively inhibit vitamin K and interfere with blood clotting. In animal studies, internal bleeding and death resulted after ingestion over an extended period of time.
Anti-diabetic effects: Essential oil of fennel seed has been reported to stimulate pancreatic alpha-cells and insulin secretion.
Antispasmodic effects: Fennel seed increases gastrointestinal motility and acts as an antispasmodic at high doses. Fennel extracts produce a reduction in acetylcholine-induced contraction and decreases maximum possible contractility.
Gastric acid secretion properties: Fennel in a concentration of 10% weight/volume increased gastric acid secretion in rats from 0.12mL (basal level) to 0.42mL. The exact mechanism of increasing gastric acid secretion is unknown.
Muscle relaxant effects: Fennel oil has demonstrated an increase in resting force of guinea pig tracheal smooth muscle. Anethole may be responsible for the positive inotropic effect.12 In another animal study, sweet fennel oil inhibited acetylcholine-induced contractions of ileal and bladder smooth muscles. The mechanism of action is thought to be due to an inhibition of calcium release from intracellular stores and binding to calcium-binding proteins by the constituents in the fennel oil.13
Mucociliary effects: Based on secondary sources, aqueous fennel extracts increased mucociliary activity of the ciliary epithelium in the respiratory tract in frogs.
