Abstract

Emmanuel Titus Friday, Omale James, Olupinyo Olusegun and Adah Gabriel

Ceiba pentandra is huge, wide, normally found in wild forest of West Africa. The present study investigated the nutritional and bioactive components of the leaf of the popularly consumed vegetable in some part of Nigeria and other West Africa countries. The proximate analysis and bioactive constituents were determined by standard methods of AOAC, while vitamins A, E, micro/macro elements and fatty acids were determined using AAS and HPLC respectively. The results showed that the leaf contained 4.891 ± 0.35% moisture, 12.97 ± 1.60% protein, 52.06 ± 2.10% carbohydrate, 4.35 ± 0.60% fat, 7.54 ± 0.46% ash, 18.15 ± 0.05% crude fiber, 0.73 ± 0.07 µg/g vitamin A, 4.91 ± 0.16 mg/g vitamin C and 0.18 ± 0.02 mg/g vitamin E while micro/macro elements and fatty acids showed that the leaf contained 0.33 ± 0.05, 7.66 ± 1.40, 2.46 ± 0.46, 11.40 ± 2.10, 5.53 ± 0.95, 0.02 ± 0.04, 0.03 ± 0.01 and 0.04 ± 0.02 mg/100 g of Fe, Ca, Mg, K, Na, Cu and Zn respectively. 15.92 ± 0.17% palmitic acid and 0.72 ± 0.02% linolelic acid. The bioactive compound found were 173.94 ± 3.09 mg/g phenolics, 4.54 ± 0.02 mg/g alkaloids, 26.06 ± 0.16 mg/g flavonoids, 0.48 ± 0.03 mg/g tannins, 1.55 ± 0.04 mg/g saponnins, 0.15 ± 0.02 mg/g phytate, 14.54 ± 0.50 TUI units/mg trypsin inhitors, 9.65 ± 1.28 HUI unit/mg hemagglutinin inhibitors. All these results indicate that the leaves of this C. pentandra contained nutrients and mineral elements that may be useful in nutrition, while the bioactive compounds explained the medicinal action of the plant leaves encountered in its therapeutic uses and or which provide scientific basis for its use in folk medicine.