Liquorice

For other uses, see Liquorice (disambiguation).
Liquorice
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Rosids
Order: Fabales
Family: Fabaceae
Subfamily: Faboideae
Tribe: Galegeae
Genus: Glycyrrhiza
Species: G. glabra
Binomial name
Glycyrrhiza glabra
L.[1]
Synonyms
Glycyrrhiza glabra - MHNT

Liquorice, or licorice, (/ˈlɪkᵊrɪʃ/ LIK-(ə-)rish or /ˈlɪkᵊrɪs/ LIK-(ə-)ris)[2] is the root of Glycyrrhiza glabra from which a sweet flavour can be extracted. The liquorice plant is a herbaceous perennial legume native to southern Europe and parts of Asia, such as India. It is not botanically related to anise, star anise, or fennel, which are sources of similar flavouring compounds.

Most liquorice is used as a flavouring agent for tobacco, particularly US blend cigarettes, to which liquorice lends a natural sweetness and a distinctive flavour and makes it easier to inhale the smoke by creating bronchodilators, which open up the lungs.[3][4] Liquorice flavours are also used as candies or sweeteners, particularly in some European and Middle Eastern countries. Liquorice extracts have a number of medical uses, and they are also used in herbal and folk medications. Excessive consumption of liquorice (more than 2 mg/kg/day of pure glycyrrhizinic acid, a liquorice component) may result in adverse effects, and overconsumption should be suspected clinically in patients presenting with otherwise unexplained hypokalemia and muscle weakness.[5]

Etymology

The word liquorice is derived (via the Old French licoresse) from the Greek γλυκύρριζα (glukurrhiza), meaning "sweet root",[6] from γλυκύς (glukus), "sweet"[7] + ῥίζα (rhiza), "root",[8][9] the name provided by Dioscorides.[10] It is usually spelled liquorice in British usage, but licorice in the United States and Canada.

Description

It is a herbaceous perennial, growing to 1 m in height, with pinnate leaves about 7–15 cm (2.8–5.9 in) long, with 9–17 leaflets. The flowers are 0.8–1.2 cm (1⁄3–1⁄2 in) long, purple to pale whitish blue, produced in a loose inflorescence. The fruit is an oblong pod, 2–3 cm (3⁄4–1 1⁄6 in) long, containing several seeds.[11] The roots are stoloniferous.[12]

Chemistry

The scent of liquorice root comes from a complex and variable combination of compounds, of which anethole is up to 3% of total volatiles. Much of the sweetness in liquorice comes from glycyrrhizin, which has a sweet taste, 30–50 times the sweetness of sugar. The sweetness is very different from sugar, being less instant, tart, and lasting longer.

The isoflavene glabrene and the isoflavane glabridin, found in the roots of liquorice, are phytoestrogens.[13][14]

Cultivation and uses

Liquorice, which grows best in well-drained soils in deep valleys with full sun, is harvested in the autumn two to three years after planting.[11] Countries producing liquorice include India, Iran, Afghanistan, the People’s Republic of China, Pakistan, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Turkey.[15]

The world's leading manufacturer of liquorice products is M&F Worldwide, which manufactures more than 70% of the worldwide liquorice flavours sold to end users.[16]

Tobacco

Most liquorice is used as a flavouring agent for tobacco. For example, M&F Worldwide reported in 2011 that about 63% of its liquorice product sales are to the worldwide tobacco industry for use as tobacco flavour enhancing and moistening agents in the manufacture of American blend cigarettes, moist snuff, chewing tobacco, and pipe tobacco.[15] American blend cigarettes made up a larger portion of worldwide tobacco consumption in earlier years,[17] and the percentage of liquorice products used by the tobacco industry was higher in the past. M&F Worldwide sold approximately 73% of its liquorice products to the tobacco industry in 2005.[18] A consultant to M&F Worldwide's predecessor company stated in 1975 that it was believed that well over 90% of the total production of liquorice extract and its derivatives found its way into tobacco products.[3]

Liquorice provides tobacco products with a natural sweetness and a distinctive flavour that blends readily with the natural and imitation flavouring components employed in the tobacco industry. It represses harshness and is not detectable as liquorice by the consumer.[3] Tobacco flavourings such as liquorice also make it easier to inhale the smoke by creating bronchodilators, which open up the lungs.[4] Chewing tobacco requires substantially higher levels of liquorice extract as emphasis on the sweet flavour appears highly desirable.[3]

Food and candy

Liquorice flavour is found in a wide variety of candies or sweets. In most of these candies, the taste is reinforced by aniseed oil so the actual content of liquorice is very low. Liquorice confections are primarily purchased by consumers in the European Union.[15]

In the Netherlands, the liquorice candy (drop) is one of the most popular forms of sweets. It is one of the many forms that are sold contain aniseed. Mixing it with mint, menthol, or laurel is quite popular. Mixing it with ammonium chloride (salmiak) is also popular. The most popular liquorice, known in the Netherlands as zoute drop (salty liquorice), actually contains very little salt, i.e., sodium chloride.[19] The salty taste is probably due to ammonium chloride and the blood pressure-raising effect is due to glycyrrhizin. Strong, salty sweets are popular in Nordic countries.

Pontefract in Yorkshire was the first place where liquorice mixed with sugar began to be used as a sweet in the same way it is in the modern day.[20] Pontefract cakes were originally made there. In County Durham, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, it is colloquially known as 'Spanish', supposedly because Spanish monks grew liquorice root at Rievaulx Abbey near Thirsk.[21]

Liquorice root chips
Dried sticks of liquorice root

In Italy (particularly in the south), Spain, and France, liquorice is popular in its natural form. The root of the plant is simply dug up, washed, dried, and chewed as a mouth freshener. Throughout Italy, unsweetened liquorice is consumed in the form of small black pieces made only from 100% pure liquorice extract; the taste is bitter. In Calabria a popular liqueur is made from pure liquorice extract.

Liquorice is also very popular in Syria and Egypt, where it is sold as a drink, in shops as well as street vendors. It is used for its expectorant qualities in folk medicine in Egypt.

Dried liquorice root can be chewed as a sweet. Black liquorice contains about 100 calories per ounce (15 kJ/g).

Liquorice is used by brewers to flavour and colour porter classes of beers, and the enzymes in the root also stabilize the foam heads produced by beers brewed with it.[22]

Medicine

See also: Glycyrrhizin
See also: Enoxolone

Glycyrrhizin has also demonstrated antiviral, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, and blood pressure-increasing effects in vitro and in vivo, as is supported by the finding that intravenous glycyrrhizin (as if it is given orally very little of the original drug makes it into circulation) slows the progression of viral and autoimmune hepatitis.[23][24] In one clinical trial liquorice demonstrated promising activity, when applied topically, against atopic dermatitis.[25] Additionally, liquorice may be effective in treating hyperlipidaemia (a high amount of fats in the blood).[26] Liquorice has also demonstrated efficacy in treating inflammation-induced skin hyperpigmentation.[27][28] Liquorice may also be useful in preventing neurodegenerative disorders and dental caries.[29][30][31]

The antiulcer, laxative, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, antitumour and expectorant properties of liquorice have been investigated.[32]

The compound glycyrrhizin (or glycyrrhizic acid), found in liquorice, has been proposed as being useful for liver protection in tuberculosis therapy, but evidence does not support this use, which may in fact be harmful.[33]

Folk medicine

In traditional Chinese medicine, liquorice (甘草) is believed to "harmonize" the ingredients in a formula and to carry the formula to the 12 "regular meridians".[34] Liquorice has been traditionally known and used as medicine in Ayurveda for rejuvenation.[35]

Toxicity

Its major dose-limiting toxicities are corticosteroid in nature, because of the inhibitory effect its chief active constituents, glycyrrhizin and enoxolone, have on cortisol degradation and include oedema, hypokalaemia, weight gain or loss, and hypertension.[36][37]

The United States Food and Drug Administration believes that foods containing liquorice and its derivatives (including glycyrrhizin) are safe if not consumed excessively. Other jurisdictions have suggested no more than 100 mg to 200 mg of glycyrrhizin per day, the equivalent of about 70 to 150 g (2.5 to 5.3 oz) of liquorice.[5]

Gallery

References

  1. 1 2 "Glycyrrhiza glabra information from NPGS/GRIN". www.ars-grin.gov. Retrieved 6 March 2008.
  2. ↑ licorice. Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2007 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Marvin K. Cook, The Use of Licorice and Other Flavoring Material in Tobacco (April 10, 1975).
  4. 1 2 Boeken v. Phillip Morris Inc., 127 Cal. App. 4th 1640, 1673, 26 Cal. Rptr. 3d 638, 664 (2005).
  5. 1 2 Omar, Hesham R; Komarova,, Irina; El-Ghonemi,, Mohamed; Ahmed, Fathy; Rashad, Rania; Abdelmalak, Hany D; Yerramadha, Muralidhar Reddy; Ali, Yaseen; Camporesi, Enrico M. "How much is too much? in Licorice abuse: time to send a warning message from Therapeutic Advances in Endocrinology and Metabolism". http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. SAGE Publications. Retrieved 13 January 2015. External link in |website= (help)
  6. ↑ γλυκύρριζα, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  7. ↑ γλυκύς, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  8. ↑ ῥίζα, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus<
  9. ↑ liquorice, on Oxford Dictionaries
  10. ↑ google books Maud Grieve, Manya Marshall - A modern herbal: the medicinal, culinary, cosmetic and economic properties, cultivation and folk-lore of herbs, grasses, fungi, shrubs, & trees with all their modern scientific uses, Volume 2 Dover Publications, 1982 & Pharmacist's Guide to Medicinal Herbs Arthur M. Presser Smart Publications, 1 April 2001 2012-05-19
  11. 1 2 Huxley, A., ed. (1992). New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. ISBN 0-333-47494-5
  12. ↑ Brown, D., ed. (1995). "The RHS encyclopedia of herbs and their uses". ISBN 1-4053-0059-0
  13. ↑ Somjen, D.; Katzburg, S.; Vaya, J.; Kaye, A. M.; Hendel, D.; Posner, G. H.; Tamir, S. (2004). "Estrogenic activity of glabridin and glabrene from licorice roots on human osteoblasts and prepubertal rat skeletal tissues". The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 91 (4–5): 241–246. doi:10.1016/j.jsbmb.2004.04.008. PMID 15336701.
  14. ↑ Tamir, S.; Eizenberg, M.; Somjen, D.; Izrael, S.; Vaya, J. (2001). "Estrogen-like activity of glabrene and other constituents isolated from licorice root". The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 78 (3): 291–298. doi:10.1016/S0960-0760(01)00093-0. PMID 11595510.
  15. 1 2 3 M & F Worldwide Corp., Annual Report on Form 10-K for the Year Ended December 31, 2010.
  16. ↑ M & F Worldwide Corp., Annual Report on Form 10-K for the Year Ended December 31, 2001.
  17. ↑ Erik Assadourian, Cigarette Production Drops, Vital Signs 2005, at 70.
  18. ↑ M & F Worldwide Corp., Annual Report on Form 10-K for the Year Ended December 31, 2005.
  19. ↑ the online Dutch food composition database]
  20. ↑ "Right good food from the Ridings". AboutFood.com. 25 October 2007.
  21. ↑ "Where Liquorice Roots Go Deep". Northern Echo. Retrieved 9 December 2008.
  22. ↑ Licorice - HowStuffWorks
  23. ↑ Chien, CF; Wu, YT; Tsai, TH (January 2011). "Biological analysis of herbal medicines used for the treatment of liver diseases.". Biomedical Chromatography 25 (1-2): 21–38. doi:10.1002/bmc.1568. PMID 21204110.
  24. ↑ Yasui, S; Fujiwara, K; Tawada, A; Fukuda, Y; Nakano, M; Yokosuka, O (December 2011). "Efficacy of intravenous glycyrrhizin in the early stage of acute onset autoimmune hepatitis.". Digestive Diseases and Sciences 56 (12): 3638–47. doi:10.1007/s10620-011-1789-5. PMID 21681505.
  25. ↑ Reuter, J; Merfort, I; Schempp, CM (2010). "Botanicals in dermatology: an evidence-based review.". American Journal of Clinical Dermatology 11 (4): 247–67. doi:10.2165/11533220-000000000-00000. PMID 20509719.
  26. ↑ Hasani-Ranjbar, S; Nayebi, N; Moradi, L; Mehri, A; Larijani, B; Abdollahi, M (2010). "The efficacy and safety of herbal medicines used in the treatment of hyperlipidemia; a systematic review.". Current pharmaceutical design 16 (26): 2935–47. doi:10.2174/138161210793176464. PMID 20858178.
  27. ↑ Callender, VD; St Surin-Lord, S; Davis, EC; Maclin, M (April 2011). "Postinflammatory hyperpigmentation: etiologic and therapeutic considerations.". American Journal of Clinical Dermatology 12 (2): 87–99. doi:10.2165/11536930-000000000-00000. PMID 21348540. Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help)
  28. ↑ Leyden, JJ; Shergill, B; Micali, G; Downie, J; Wallo, W (October 2011). "Natural options for the management of hyperpigmentation.". Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology 25 (10): 1140–5. doi:10.1111/j.1468-3083.2011.04130.x. PMID 21623927.
  29. ↑ Kannappan, R; Gupta, SC; Kim, JH; Reuter, S; Aggarwal, BB (October 2011). "Neuroprotection by spice-derived nutraceuticals: you are what you eat!" (PDF). Molecular Neurobiology 44 (2): 142–59. doi:10.1007/s12035-011-8168-2. PMC 3183139. PMID 21360003.
  30. ↑ Gazzani, G; Daglia, M; Papetti, A (April 2012). "Food components with anticaries activity.". Current Opinion in Biotechnology 23 (2): 153–9. doi:10.1016/j.copbio.2011.09.003. PMID 22030309.
  31. ↑ Messier, C; Epifano, F; Genovese, S; Grenier, D (January 2012). "Licorice and its potential beneficial effects in common oro-dental diseases.". Oral Diseases 18 (1): 32–9. doi:10.1111/j.1601-0825.2011.01842.x. PMID 21851508.
  32. ↑ Shibata, S (October 2000). "A drug over the millennia: pharmacognosy, chemistry, and pharmacology of licorice.". Yakugaku Zasshi 120 (10): 849–62. PMID 11082698.
  33. ↑ Liu Q, Garner P, Wang Y, Huang B, Smith H (2008). "Drugs and herbs given to prevent hepatotoxicity of tuberculosis therapy: systematic review of ingredients and evaluation studies". BMC Public Health (Systematic review) 8: 365. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-8-365. PMC 2576232. PMID 18939987.
  34. ↑ Bensky, Dan; et al. (2004). Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica, Third Edition. Eastland Press. ISBN 0-939616-42-4.
  35. ↑ Balakrishna, Acharya (2006). Ayurveda: Its Principles & Philosophies. New Delhi, India: Divya prakashan. p. 206. ISBN 8189235567.
  36. ↑ Olukoga, A; Donaldson, D (June 2000). "Liquorice and its health implications.". The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 120 (2): 83–9. doi:10.1177/146642400012000203. PMID 10944880.
  37. ↑ Armanini, D; Fiore, C; Mattarello, MJ; Bielenberg, J; Palermo, M (September 2002). "History of the endocrine effects of licorice.". Experimental and Clinical Endocrinology & diabetes 110 (6): 257–61. doi:10.1055/s-2002-34587. PMID 12373628.

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