Project Materials

EVALUATION OF PROXIMATE CONSTITUENTS IN LEAFS AND ROOTS OF SIMAROUBA GLAUCA D.C (PARADISE TREE)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study 

According to Young and Pelett (1994), plants provide a major source of carbon, vitamins, minerals, protein, vital fatty acids, and usable energy for food production. They also undertake photosynthesis.

For thousands of years, plants have been essential to preserving and enhancing human health and well-being. Misra (2010). For both humans and animals, they are a major source of food and nourishment.

The study of food and its connection to health is known as nutrition. The term “nutrition” describes the sustenance of life. “Nutrition” is another term for the study of nutrient requirements and the food that meets them (Chutani, 2008). It is “the science that interprets the relationship of food to the functioning of living organisms,” according to Pike and Brown (1984).

Food intake, energy release, waste removal, and all synthesis processes necessary for upkeep, development, and reproduction are all included (Chutani, 2008). In addition to preserving regular bodily functions, eating plays a critical role in preventing infections and aiding in an unwell person’s recovery.

Infections and nutrition work together in a synergistic way, with recurring infections causing the body to lose nitrogen and deteriorating nutritional status.

Malnutrition therefore increases vulnerability to infection (Kurpad, 2005). The first person to propose that the makeup of the typical diet could influence health was Aristotle (384–322 B.C.).

Atwater separated food composition into five divisions in a work on metabolic research published in 1897: protein, fat, carbohydrate, energy, and water.

However, the term “proximate composition” is now commonly used to refer to six dietary components, which are given as percentages (%) or grammes per 100 grammes (g/100g): moisture, crude protein, crude ash, crude fibre, crude fat, and carbohydrate (nitrogen free extract).

The study of proximate analysis on foods was created over a hundred years ago by two German scientists, Henneberg and Stohmann, and even if new techniques have been adopted, their system of proximate still forms the basis for the statutory declaration of the composition of meals. (Dublecz, 2011).

To sidestep the frenzied and destructive effects of free radicals, antioxidants are naturally present in living organisms and are capable of scavenging these free radicals, converting them to less reactive forms, hence preventing or suppressing cellular damage .

Antioxidant defense mechanisms in humans include iron transport proteins such as transferrin, albumin, ferritin, and caeruloplasmin; metabolic products such as glutathione, ubiquinol and uric acid; and endogenous enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, catalase, Of the approximately 60 species of tropical and subtropical plants of the genus Pterocarpus, 20 are found in Africa, specifically in Nigeria and Cameroon.