Comparative Estimation of Arginine Content in Peanuts: An Analytical Study

Abstract

Introduction: Arginine is an amino acid that has several positive effects on human health and peanut seeds are the richest source of it. Peanuts are the store houses loaded with proteins, fatty acids, vitamins, fiber and other phytochemicals. It has been shown that the intake of arginine at the concentration of 3-6 g/day has been found to improve the cardiovascular system, reduce intestinal permeability and activate the immune system that aids in early recovery of tuberculosis patients. Aim: To evaluate the variation of arginine content in raw, boiled, soaked, soaked and boiled type of peeled and unpeeled peanuts. Materials and Methods: The analytical study on various groups of peanuts (raw, boiled, soaked, soaked and boiled peanuts of both peeled and unpeeled varieties) was conducted at Gayatri Vidya Parishad Institute of Health Care and Medical Technology at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India, in December 2019. The arginine content was estimated in peanut seeds using the Sakaguchi method by Spectrophotometry at wavelength of 520 nm. Descriptive statistics were done for all 12 groups and were represented with mean, standard deviation and standard error. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Post-hoc Tukey’s were applied to find statistical significance. The p-value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25.0 was used for analysis. Results: Concentration of arginine was recorded for each type in triplicate considering the mean. The raw soaked peeled peanuts had the lowest concentration of arginine (31.82 µg/g) and the soaked boiled for 15 minutes, unpeeled peanuts had the highest amount of arginine (1438.18 µg/g). Significant difference was found among the twelve groups by using ANOVA test p<0.001. Soaked and boiled 15 min peeled peanuts, soaked unpeeled, soaked and boiled 15 min unpeeled and soaked and boiled 30 min unpeeled were significantly different when compared to the remaining groups using Post hoc Tukey’s test p<0.05. Conclusion: Soaked, boiled and unpeeled peanuts were the best types with the highest amounts of arginine which could be chosen as adjuvant nutritional therapeutic supplement to aid in the recovery of certain diseases.