International Journal of Food and Nutritional Science International Journal of Food and Nutritional Science International Journal of Food and Nutritional Science International Journal of Food and Nutritional Science 2377-0619Ommega Online PublishersNew Jersey, USA126110.15436/2377-0619.16.1261Research ArticleTotal Antioxidant Capacity, Antimicrobial Activity and Preliminary Analysis of Some Nutritional Compounds in Moringa Oleifera preparationsTotal Antioxidant Capacity, Antimicrobial Activity and Preliminary Analysis of Some Nutritional Compounds in Moringa Oleifera preparationsEnrico Doria 1Centre of Sustainable Livelihoods Vaal University of Technology Vanderbijlpark South Africa 2Department of Biological Science Faculty of Sciences University of Maroua Maroua Cameroon 3Department of Biology and Biotechnology University of Pavia Italy 4Department of Biotechnology Vaal University of Technology Vanderbijlpark South Africa Editor* E-mail: enrico.doria@unipv.it
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
20172802201741IJFNS-16-RA-126108122016231220162017Creative Commons Attribution LicenseThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. nbsp emsp emsp Globally there is a growing interest in plant products as a potential source of antioxidant compounds in relation to oxidative stress that is one of the causes of several degenerative diseases Moringa oleifera is one of the African plants commonly consumed as a nutritional supplement by several communities due to the high level of vitamins and minerals present in the leaves In this study the antioxidant power some nutritional polyphenols vitamin C flavonoids as kaempferol and quercetin ursolic acid and trigonelline and anti nutritional factors condensed tannins phytic acid from a leaf powder extract obtained from a Moringa cultivar grown in Guateng region South Africa were tested Some of these results were compared to a commercial Rooibos tea Aspalathus linearis another typical and commonly used South African beverage and to coffee Coffee arabica The results of these comparison tests indicated that tea preparations from Moringa oleifera powder and from Rooibos tea contains the same antioxidant activity but the content of flavonoids vitamin C and free phosphate are significantly higher in Moringa Moreover Moringa extract shows antimicrobial and antifungal activity and very significant concentrations of ursolic acid first evidence in moringa and trigonelline10