PHYTOCHEMICAL AND NUTRITIONAL ANALYSIS OF CARALLUMA FIMBRIATA L.

Abstract

In nature, there are many underutilized plants of promising nutritive value, which can nourish the e ve r increasing human population. They have remained underutilized due to the lack of awareness and popularization of te chnology. People's diet offers a greater and more dive rse group of plant bioactive than do drugs and they often do not realize that many drugs are derived from the compounds which are originally discovered in plants. Plants play an important part in maintaining general good health owing to the presence of nutritional and phytoche mical prope rty. All these substances he lp to protect the body process, on which vitality and good health depend. They also contain a variety of bioactive non-nutritive health promoting factors. Most of the plants serve as food but the ir nutritional and phytochemical potential has not been overlooked. The present study was to analyze the preliminary phytochemical and nutritional analysis of Caralluma fimbriata L. It is an ethnomedicinal and nutritional plant used for different ailments in the tribal regions of Sangamner tehsil of Ahme dnagar district (MS) India. This study re veals the presence of Steroid, Caumarin, Protein, Carbohydrates, Diterpenes, Phytoste rol, Flavonoids, Saponins and alkaloids. The nutritional analysis shows the rich amount of mine ral and ele mental substances. Present study gives an alternative source for pharmaceutical and nutraceuticals industries.