Table 1.

The anticancer activities of spices.

Sites	Spices	Constituents	Anticancer Effects	References
Lung	Turmeric	Curcumin	Inducing apoptosis and DNA damage; inhibiting proliferation, migration, and the growth of cancer; decreasing cell growth and viability; inhibiting expression of DNA-repair-associated proteins	[34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42]
	Black cumin	Seed extract and seed oil; Thymoquinone	Reducing viability of human lung cancer; inhibiting proliferation, migration, and invasion of lung cancer cells	[98,99,100]
	Ginger	6-Shogaol	Decreasing tumorigenesis and the metastasis	[128]
	Garlic	Thiacremonone	Inhibiting tumor growth	[161]
	Saffron	Ethanolic extract, aqueous extract	Inducing cell death and apoptosis, inhibiting the cell proliferation	[175,176]
	Red chili pepper	Capsaicin	Restraining angiogenesis, inducing apoptosis and oxidative DNA damage	[198,199,200,201]
Liver	Turmeric	Curcumin	Inhibiting the growth of hepatoma cells, inhibiting and reversing diethylnitrosamine-induced hepatocarcinogenesis	[44,45,46]
	Black cumin	Thymoquinone	Inhibiting cell proliferation	[101,102]
	Rosemary	Carnosic acid	Sensitizing TRAIL-mediated apoptosis, inducing autophagic cell death	[223,226]
	Clove	Eugenol	Improving the xenobiotic-metabolizing systems	[232]
	Galangal	Galangin	Inhibiting proliferation of cancer cells,	[233,234]
Breast	Turmeric	Curcumin	Inhibiting MCF-7 breast carcinoma cells, cell invasion, and sensitizing cancer cells to retinoic acid	[43,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60]
	Black cumin	Thymoquinone	Anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic effects	[103,104,105,106]
	Ginger	6-Shogaol	Decreasing tumorigenesis and the metastasis	[128,130]
	Garlic	Diallyl disulfide, Diallyl sulfide, Diallyl trisulfide, S-allyl mercaptocysteine	Inhibiting proliferation, cell growth, and metastasis; inhibiting diethylstilbestrol induced DNA damage; inducing apoptosis; immunomodulation; inhibiting estrogen receptor-α activity	[143,144,145,146,147,148,149]
	Saffron	Crocetin	Inhibiting invasiveness	[183]
	Black pepper	Piperine	Inhibiting proliferation, the growth and motility of cells, inducing apoptosis, enhancing the efficacy of TRAIL-based therapy	[187,188,189]
	Red chili pepper	Capsaicin	Inducing cell death, inhibiting invasion and migration	[202,204]
	Rosemary	Supercritical fluid rosemary extract	Downregulating estrogen receptor-α and HER2 receptors, sensitizing TRAIL-mediated apoptosis	[221,223]
	Clove	Eugenol	Inducing apoptosis	[228]
	Coriander	Ethyl acetate extract	Inhibiting DNA damage and migration	[238]
	Wasabi	6-MITC	Inducing apoptosis	[240]
Stomach	Turmeric	Curcumin	Inhibiting proliferation and invasion, promoting apoptosis, suppressing lymphatic vessel density, inhibiting cell growth	[61,62,63,64,65]
	Garlic	Diallyl disulfide	Causing G2/M arrest, promoting apoptosis, suppressing xenograft tumors	[150,151,152,153,154,155]
	Saffron	Crocetin, crocin	antioxidant, anti-proliferative, and apoptotic activities	[177,178]
	Red chili pepper	Capsaicin	Inhibiting cell proliferation, inducing apoptosis	[205,206]
	Cardamom	Not mentioned	Inhibiting Benzo(α)Pyrene-induced forestomach papillomagenesis	[249]
Colorectum	Turmeric	Curcumin	Preventing aberrant crypt foci, inducing apoptosis, inhibiting cell growth	[66,67,68,69,70,71,72]
	Black cumin	Thymoquinone	Attenuating tumor development and growth, inducing apoptosis, inducing autophagic cell death	[110,111,112,113,114]
	Ginger	Ginger root/leaf extract, 6-gingerol, shogaols	Reducing cell viability and proliferation, inducing apoptosis	[23,127,131,132,133,134]
	Garlic	Se-Methyl-l-selenocysteine garlic extract	Inducing apoptosis, suppressing cell proliferation	[156,157]
	Onion	Se-Methyl-l-selenocysteine	Inducing apoptosis	[156]
	Scallion	Scallion extract	Inhibiting tumor growth	[172]
	Saffron	Crocin	Inducing apoptosis	[179]
	Black pepper	Piperine	Impairing cell cycle progression and inducing apoptosis	[193,194]
	Red chili pepper	Capsaicin	Inhibiting cell proliferation and inducing apoptosis	[215]
	Rosemary	Rosemary extract, carnosic acid, diterpenes	Sensitizing cancer cells to 5-FU, inhibiting cell migration, inducing apoptosis	[218,219,220]
	Clove	Clove extract	Inhibiting tumor growth and promoting cell cycle arrest and apoptosis	[231]
	Galangal	Galangin	Inducing cell death	[236]
	Cinnamon	Cinnamaldehyde	Regulating drug-metabolizing genes	[243]
	Oregano	Carvacrol	Inhibiting proliferation and induces apoptosis	[247]
Cervix	Turmeric	Curcumin	Eradicating HPV+ cancer cells without affecting non-cancerous tissue, inhibiting the proliferation and inducing apoptosis, inhibiting tumor growth and angiogenesis	[76,78,79]
	Black cumin	Thymoquinone, methanolic extract	Inducing apoptosis and inhibiting proliferation	[117,118]
	Clove	Eugenol	Enhancing the effect of gemcitabine, anticarcinogenic and anti-inflammatory activity	[229]
Prostate	Turmeric	Curcumin	Targeting AR and histone modification, inhibiting the proliferation and growth	[73,74,75]
	Ginger	Ginger extract, 6-shogaol, 6-gingerol and 6-paradol	Inducing apoptosis, inhibiting prostate cancer cell proliferation and growth	[123,135,136]
	Saffron	Saffron extract	Antiproliferative properties, inhibiting cell invasion and migration	[180,181]
	Black pepper	Piperine	Reducing the androgen dependent and androgen independent tumor growth, inhibiting proliferation	[190,191]
	Red chili pepper	Capsaicin	Reducing the metastatic burden, radio-sensitizing agent	[209,210]
	Rosemary	Rosemary extract	Promoting androgen receptor degradation and decreasing xenograft tumor growth	[224]