Moringa Leaves with Beneficial Secondary Metabolites

Moringa originally belongs to India and later on it is taken up to different parts of the world. Moringa oleifera is well known ethnobotanical plant belongs to Moringaceae family of plants which is highly significant in Indian food. The immature pods, leaves are eaten as nutritious plant parts. Nowadays, this plant is of high importance in Indian market because of its medicinal and economical importance. Moringa is cultivated on large scale not only in India, but also all over the globe especially in warm countries. In this study, it was found that this plant contains secondary metabolites which are present in all parts of the plants. The analysis of secondary metabolites has been done on shade dried leaves using soxhlet method with chloroform and water as the solvent of extraction. In the qualitative estimations of these extracts, we observed presence of secondary metabolites such as alkaloids, tannins, carbohydrate, cardiac glycosides, phenols, protein, amino acids, flavonoids, saponins, resins, terpenoids, coumarins, and quinons. During the quantitative estimation, we observed that plant contains optimum concentrations of alkaloids, flavonoids, and tannins in leaves. The higher amount of secondary metabolites indicates that this plant has anti-oxidative activity around 86.62 % with absorbance 0.13. The plant Moringa contains numerous necessary components for the growth of human being such as nutrients, vitamins, and necessary elements. It can be a desired component of human diet.