THE VALORIZATION OF TROPICAL PLANT EXTRACTS/WASTE

The work presented here was undertaken to explore the potential of tropical plant extracts, in particular the leaves and fruit peels, for use as nutraceuticals and/or cosmeceuticals and at the same time taking into consideration the safety concerns associated with plants extracts. A number of tropical plant extracts were established as sources of powerful natural anti-oxidants and had the ability to prevent lipid peroxidation. It was interesting to note that extracts having a high phenolic content correspondingly served as good anti-oxidants. These extracts essentially wastes to the food industry have the ability to be developed as nutraceuticals. A number of plant extracts was also established to serve as UV blockers, anti-cellulite and skin whitening agents. The safety concerns associated with plant extract is normally the high heavy metal content and its cytotoxicity. These parameters were looked at in this study and extracts identified as potential nutraceuticals or cosmeceutical agents were shown to have relatively low or no heavy metals and were not cytotoxic to the cell lines tested.