Phytochemical Screening, Antioxidant Potential and Nutritional Compounds of Aframomum melegueta and Syzygium aromaticum Seeds in Ibadan, Oyo-State, Nigeria

Abstract

Consequents upon the efficacies of the local claims of Aframomum melegueta (Ataare) and Syzygium aromaticum (Kanafuru) in the treatment of respiratory infections and diseases in the study area, the present study was conducted to investigate the phytochemical, antioxidant capacity and nutritional composition in compounds of Aframomum melegueta and Syzygium aromaticum seeds to validates their local claims. The aqueous extracts of the plants seeds were obtained using standard procedures. The phytochemical screening revealed the presence of alkaloids, saponins, flavonoids, terpenoids and phenols in the aqueous extracts of the plants seeds, while tannins was absent in the extract of Aframomum melegueta. Flavonoids and phenols revealed the highest antioxidant potential of the plants quantitatively at 0.1 g/m. The proximate contents of the plants seeds showed the level of crude contents ranging from moisture  (7.34% ± 0.01 and 13.74% ± 0.03), fiber (28.33% ± 0.02 and 16.23% ± 0.02), protein (21.03% ± 0.02 and 10.79% ± 0.05), fat (7.13% ± 0.02 and 27.94% ± 0.10) and carbohydrates (32.76% ± 0.03 and 26.53% ± 0.02) respectively. The results also revealed the presence of potassium (63.50% ± 0.2 ppm and 64.20% ± 0.2 ppm), calcium (7.54% ± 0.2 ppm and 10.40% ± 0.2 ppm) and magnesium (9.05% ± 0.2 ppm and 9.11% ± 0.2 ppm) in the two plants seeds respectively. Therefore this study justifies the local use of Aframomum melegueta (Ataare) and Syzygium aromaticum (Kanafuru) as sources of medicine to manage and alleviate various symptoms associated with respiratory diseases and health conditions.