Effect of Varying Drying Temperature on the Soluble Sugar and Nutritional Content of Banana

Aims: In this work, the effect of drying temperature on the available carbohydrate is investigated. Background: Nigerian climate favours the cultivation of banana and it is a ready fruit delight available in almost all homes. Hybrids and polyploids of the species musa acuminata and musa balbisiana are very common. Unfortunately, post-harvest losses of 40 – 60%, of this energy rich fruit are encountered yearly. Drying is very old method of preservation which has stood the test of time. Bananas are known to possess high carbohydrates with low glycaemic index which makes it a healthy fruit or snack. Objective: To determine the optimum drying temperature for the drying of Banana fruit. Methods: The banana fruit was peeled and sliced to about 5 mm thickness and dried in a tray dryer at varying temperatures of 40 °C, 50 °C, 60 °C and 70 °C. The control sample was air dried at the average prevailing temperature of 30 °C. Results: Results obtained showed that increased drying temperature leads to more loss of moisture from the samples and in turn, favoured an increase in the available carbohydrate in the dried fruit. The ash, fat and crude fibre content marginally changed with drying temperature. Conclusion: The optimum temperature for treated and untreated samples, from the results obtained, were 60 °C and 70 °C respectively. Drying impacts positively on the available sugar in the Banana fruit

Antimalarial agents from medicinal plant and fungal sources

Malaria is the fourth major parasitic infectious disease for humans, causing severe symptoms and life-threatening complications, which, if untreated within 24–48 h may evolve in the fatality. In the past five decades, major initiatives in the treatment and prevention of this devastating disease have been implemented in endemic areas, leading to significant progress and declining trends. The majority of the reports presented here are focused on the activity of the extracts and fractions of plant or fungal origin: this approach has its rationale in the observation that crude materials are often more active than isolated compounds, due to the manifestation of beneficial synergistic and additional effects and/or pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic interactions. Consideration has been given to the antiplasmodial activities in relation to the different herbal part and nature of extracting solvents and to safety studies; whenever available, phytochemical fingerprint has been reported, disclosing a variety of unique molecular scaffolds with a potential as new pharmacophores. Despite the general lack of mechanistic information for the curative effects of the reported plants and fungi, these studies may undoubtedly pave the way to a new generation of antimalarial agents