Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.) and pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium L.), impressive advantages with wondrous health-beneficial phytochemicals

Abstract

Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.), belonging to the Asparagaceae family and has substantial medicinal properties. The name for asparagus comes from the Greek meaning sprout or shoot. This review aims to summarize the most important traditional and modern health benefits and pharmaceutical advantages of asparagus. This manuscript included randomized control experiments, review articles, observational and analytical studies, which have been surveyed in Google Scholar, Scopus, Research Gate and PubMed. We screened the articles first by reviewing titles and abstracts and subsequently reading the whole manuscript of those publications deemed suitable. The searches focused on publication from 1980 to January 2022. The most notable volatile organic compounds responsible for the smell are methanethiol, dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide, dimethyl sulfoxide and dimethyl sulfone. The most important health benefits of asparagus are antitumor, hepatoprotective, antioxidant, hypocholesterolemic, neuroprotective, immunoprotective, antimutagenic and hypoglycemic activities. The major pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium L.) essential oils are pulegone, menthone, isomenthone, piperitone, mentol, neo-menthol and 3-Octanol. The major health benefits of pennyroyal are antiseptic, depurative, digestive, anti-rheumatic, anti-arthritic, antimicrobial, antibacterial, stomachic, astringent, emmenagogue, decongestant and insecticide. Due to its pharmacological activities, asparagus is a high potential medicinal herb and the suggestion is to increases by doing research in both safety and efficacy. Natural herbal medicines which are also non-synthetic drug, super-fruit and functional foods is recommended and medicinal plants could be considered as organic super-fruit in all over the world. The phytochemical and pharmacological characteristics of asparagus show that asparagus is one of the most important medicinal plants in both traditional and modern pharmaceutical sciences. Pennyroyal has notable promising health benefits, and its phytochemical and pharmacological benefits indicate its important to be utilized in modern medicinal studies. This review also suggests more evidences for other researchers to use asparagus and pennyroyal as the ancient efficacious natural drugs.