The genus Mentha includes about 40 species, 15 hybrids and hundreds of cultivars of plants of this genus belonging to the Lamiaceae family.

Mentha genus is  divided in:

• Audibertia
• Eriodontes
• Mentha
• Preslia
• Pulegium

Most are perennial sunplants and native to Europe, grown in the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.

Mint contain essential oils and is widely used as an aroma in drinks, foods and cigarettes.

From an economic point of view the most important species are:

Mentha aquatica L.
Mentha canadensis L.
Mentha spicata L. (spearmint) and their hybrids ( Mentha - piperita L. peppermint)

The typical flavor of mint is due to menthol, an alcoholic terpene and carvone, a terpene ketone.

Mint leaves are used as tea against digestive disorders, headaches.

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Mint arvensis belongs to the Lamiacee family as all types of mint.

It is also called :

• Corn mint
• Austrian mint

It is used as insect repellent

The essential oil obtained from its leaves is used as a flavoring in:

• sweet
• drinks
• body cleaners

The essential oil obtained from Mentha arvensis is composed mostly of menthol that exerts a successfully tested antifungal action against Rhizoctonia solani and Fusarium moniliforme (1).

This study explored the possibility of reducing postprandial glucose release and inhibiting posprandial hyperglicemia with components from alternative plants for diabetes control. A methanol extract derived from Mentha arvensis was found to be effective in this antidiabetic activity (2).

The most relevant studies on this ingredient have been selected with a summary of their contents:

Mentha arvensis studies

References_______________________________________

(1) Makkar MK, Sharma S, Kaur H. Evaluation of Mentha arvensis essential oil and its major constituents for fungitoxicity.    J Food Sci Technol. 2018 Sep;55(9):3840-3844. doi: 10.1007/s13197-018-3291-y.

(2)  Agawane SB, Gupta VS, Kulkarni MJ, Bhattacharya AK, Koratkar SS. Chemo-biological evaluation of antidiabetic activity of Mentha arvensis L. and it's role in inhibition of advanced glycation end products.   J Ayurveda Integr Med. 2018 Feb 2. pii: S0975-9476(17)30058-X. doi: 10.1016/j.jaim.2017.07.003.