| خلاصه مقاله | Background and Objective: Increased temperatures during hot seasons correlate with rising food poisoning cases, especially during Arbaeen walking, necessitating effective preventive interventions. This review explores the antimicrobial potential of medicinal plants to prevent food-borne poisoning.
Methods: Electronic databases including Pubmed, Scopus and Google scholar were searched by the combination of keywords: “medicinal plants”, “antimicrobial”, and” food poisoning”. The most relevant English language studies were selected for data extrction.
Findings: According to the data extraction, ethanolic extracts of well-known medicinal plants such as Punica granatum, Syzygium aromaticum, Thymus vulgaris, Matricaria chamomilla, Silybum marianum, Melissa officinalis, and Ocimum bacilicum exhibited strong antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. Also, some of these plant extracts in addition to green and black tea infusions had significant antimicrobial effect against Bacillus cereus. Moreover, Nigella sativa and Trigonella foenum-graecum showed significant inhibitory effects on multiple pathogens especially above-mentioned ones.
Conclusion: Medicinal plants offer a promising source as natural antibiotics against pathogens especially the heat-resistant ones like Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli., and Bacillus cereus. They could be applied as preventive care for food-borne poisoning which is exacerbated on the hot weather in Arbaeen walking. Some of them like Green and black tea, Matricaria chamomilla and Melissa officinalis could be used as pleasant daily infusion teas, which also act as natural tranquilizers. Further, the powder of black seed and fenugreek seed may be used as seasoning on daily food as natural preservatives. |