Plant-based Dietary Items with Prophylactic and Therapeutic Action Against Novel Coronavirus

Abstract

The ever-flourishing human survival and dominance during the current Anthropocene era in the earth's history has seemingly been punctuated by the deaths of millions of human beings on account of the COVID-19 calamity. Within a year of the onset of the pandemic, humanity has proved its biotechnological might of the twenty-first century through developing many safe and efficacious vaccines by exemplary global co-ordination and ethical collaboration. We now aptly learned how a minuscule virus SARS-CoV-2 quite insidiously reached every nook and corner of the globe and resulted in an unprecedented loss and devastation of global economic activities. Curiously, the COVID-19 pandemic has raised several puzzling questions of life science. Among others, the most crucial question that intrigued scientists, why did a new strain of Coronavirus emerge with ten times greater infectivity than its predecessors? The enigmatic intra-molecular maneuvers in virus structure further ensured the evolution of many more variants with much greater infectivity. Despite the availability of efficacious vaccines, the absence of potent curative medicines and the evolution of escape mutations are the most important reasons for the future possibility of recurrence of the virus. So, predictive pandemic monitoring preparedness must be in place to contain epidemics or pandemics through herbal immune boosters, non-pharmaceutical measures and conservation of biodiversity as per the concept of planetary health. Alleviation of disease symptoms through dietary modification and supplementation has been an age-old practice. To date, many bioactive compounds of plant origin with immense prophylactic and therapeutic potential have been selected as biomedicines. The present article reviews the possibility of some food and drink items whose bioactive molecules could serve as physiological masks against novel Coronavirus and variants. Sprouts of peanuts, soybean, grapes, licorice, turmeric, black cumin, black pepper, snake gourd, cloves, cinnamon, citrus fruits, tea, neem, shatavari, and ashwagandha have been selected as anti-SARS-CoV-2 food and beverage items based on preclinical pharmacological screening studies. Since food items described above have been traditionally used, there is no doubt of their adverse side effects or toxicity.