Nutrient compositions of leaves of Bombax buonopozens

Abstract

There is high prevalence of micronutrients deficiency in low income countries resulting to malnutrition. This stude was designed to evaluate the nutrient compositions of leaves of Bombax Buonopozense. Minerals, amino acids and vitamins constituents were investigated using AAS, amino acid analyzer, spectrophotometer respectively. Result of dietary minerals constituent in the leaves of B. buonopozense revealed a total of eight minerals- manganese (0.02±0.00), zinc (0.02±0.00), copper (0.03±0.00), cobalt (0.04±0.00), iron (0.06±0.00), sodium (3.13±0.20), calcium (93.72±0.20) and potassium (669.22±0.20) in ascending order of concentrations. Total of seventeen amino acids consisting of eight essential and nine non-essential amino acids were identified in the leaves- arginine, valine, methionine, leucine, threonine, phenylalanine, histidine, isoleucine, lysine, proline, serine, tyrosine, alanine, glycine, glutamate, aspartate and cysteine. Five water and two fat soluble vitamins totaling seven in all were present, they are vitaminB6 (34.08± 0.20), vitaminB1 (22.74± 0.20), vitamineB2 (22.29± 0.20), vitamin A (15.91 ± 0.20), vitaminB12 (10.31± 0.20), vitaminE (9.33± 0.20µ/l), vitaminB3 (0.95± 0.02) vitamin C (0.42± 0.02) in decending order. Bombax Buonopozense leaves are rich in micro nutrients hence could as supplement in micronutrients deficient diet to prevent micronutrients deficiency.