Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Xylopia aethiopica or Ethiopian pepper is a plant that thrives in most of the evergreen rain forests of tropical and subtropical Africa, and it is currently grown most prominently in Ghana as a crop. Almost all parts of Xylopia aethiopica possess great medicinal values in traditional medicine. In most parts of Africa, it is used in the treatment of cough, rheumatism, dysentery, malaria, uterine fibroid, boils, and wounds among others. This review summarizes published data on phytochemistry, toxicological properties, Ethnopharmacological and other uses of Xylopia aethiopica, and aims at providing an up-to-date detail that should constitute baseline information for future research on the plant.
Materials and Methods: Google Scholar, Scifinder® and PubMed were the electronic databases used to search for and filter published research on Xylopia aethiopica.
Results: The various parts of Xylopia aethiopica possess a wide diversity of phytochemicals. A detailed description of only a few of these phytochemicals i.e. essential oils, alkaloids and diterpenes is available in published research currently. Extracts and isolates from almost all parts of the plant tends to possess one bioactivity or another that confirms its traditional uses, and have largely shown to be of low toxicity.
Conclusion: Xylopia aethiopica has shown to possess potential pharmacological benefits; there is however, the need for further research to be conducted on various extracts and isolates of the plant that showed promise during In vitro and animal studies, to ascertain its potency, safety and efficacy in humans.

https://www.journaljpri.com/index.php/JPRI/article/download/18503/34194

Ethnopharmacological Importance of Xylopia aethiopica (DUNAL) A. RICH (Annonaceae) - A Review

The family Annonaceae has representatives of great medical interest, and the Xylopia species deserves attention. The Xylopia genus is composed by approximately 160 species, with geographic distribution in tropical and subtropical regions of America, Africa and Asia. This genus can present shrubs or trees. In Brazil, they can be found at the North, North-west, Central-West and Central-South Regions. The phytochemical investigations resulted mainly in the isolation of alkaloids, diterpenos, quinolines and acetogenins, with the latter presenting very interesting biological properties such as the cytotoxic, antiprotozoal and the insecticide activities.This study aimed to review the botanical, chemical and pharmacological aspects of the Xylopia genus found in Brazil, highlighting the chemical components, as the well-known pharmacological effect .

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Plantas do Gênero Xylopia: Composição Química e Potencial Farmacológico

The aim of this research was to assess the nutraceutical potential of Hura crepitans seed oil in food chemi- stry. For that, we determined the phytochemical composition, physicochemical parameters, mineral composition, as well as proximates of the oil under study. The yield of the oil obtained by the Soxhlet method was 47.8 ± 0.2%. According to the phytochemical screening result, the oil contained saponin, alkaloid, terpenoids, steroids, and cardenolides. Quantitative analysis of proximates for the Hura crepitans seed oil displayed 10.1 ± 0.4% of protein, \n19.4 ± 0.1% of crude fibres, 14.5 ± 0.5% of carbohydrates, 5.3 ± 0.2% of water, and 2.9 ± 0.1% of ash. Some selected physicochemical parameters such as refractive index, pH, and specific gravity were 1.47; 5.2; and 0.80, respectively. Cloud point was 6.20°C. Metal content determination revealed the presence of mineral substances such as magne- sium (119.51 ± 0.25 mg/kg), potassium (4.25 ± 0.04 ppm), iron (4.01 ± 0.03 mg/kg), manganese (3.66 ± 0.02 ppm), so- dium (2.18 ± 0.02 ppm), calcium (0.11 ± 0.001 ppm), zinc (0.04 ± 0.001 µg/g), and cadmium (0.0028 ± 0.0004 mg/kg). However, such minerals as nickel and lead were not detected. The structural analyse was carried out based on phy- sicochemical properties and spectroscopic data of the Hura crepitans seed oil. The results of the research proved the nutraceutical potential of this oil to use as raw materials in various areas of industry.

/pdf/phytochemical-screening-and-nutraceutical-potential-of-fh4a1re9x4.pdf

Phytochemical screening and nutraceutical potential of sandbox tree (Hura crepitans L.) seed oil.

Plants have been used for medicinal purposes long before recorded history in different cultures of the world (1). The World Health Organization (WHO) gave a list of about 21,000 plants used for medicinal purposes around the world (21). Plants have the ability to synthesize a wide variety of chemical compounds that possess pharmacological properties and defend against attack from predators such as insects, fungi and herbivorous animals (25,40). About 12,000 of such compounds, representing less than 10 % of the total, have been isolated. These compounds have been found to exert their effects on the human body through mechanisms that are similar to those already established in conventional drugs revealing that herbal medicines may be as effective as the latter (25,41). Furthermore, the plant kingdom is believed to hold many new drug templates; hence, the continued investigation into ethno-medicinal plants (22).

/pdf/hyperglycaemia-lowering-effect-of-kaurane-diterpenoids-from-3hhmn5e1wq.pdf

Hyperglycaemia Lowering Effect of Kaurane Diterpenoids from the Fruits of Xylopia aethiopica (A. Dunal) Rich

Aims: The present research aimed to evaluate the anti-inflammatory action of hexane and ethyl acetate extracts of Hura crepitans L. (Euphorbiaceae) grown in Nigeria Study Design: The study involves the extraction of crude extracts from the leaf of H. crepitans and the evaluation of their anti-inflammatory potential. Place and Duration of Study: Fresh leaves of H. crepitans were collected from Festac Town, Amuwo-Odofin in Lagos, Nigeria (6.4664N, 3.2835E). The sheets were air-dried in the laboratory of Lagos State University where the extraction of crude and anti-inflammatory studies took place. The study lasted between March and November 2017. Original Research Article Avoseh et al.; EJMP, 24(1): 1-6, 2018; Article no.EJMP.41439 2 Methodology: The dried and pulverised leaves (0.5 kg) of H. crepitans were separately macerated in hexane and ethyl acetate for five (5) days in an airtight bottle and shook periodically (agitation) to maximise full extraction of the phyto-constituents. The extracts were decanted, filtered and concentrated on a rotary evaporator to obtained dried samples. The anti-inflammatory activity was determined on fresh egg albumins over 4 h by measurement of rat paw edema according to established procedure. Results: The result of the extraction shows that more phytochemicals are present in the ethyl acetate extract (15.0%) as compared to the hexane extract (7.2%). The anti-inflammatory activities of the ethyl acetate and hexane extracts of H. crepitans on Wistar rats using egg-albumin as phlogistic agents shows a moderate inhibition with a significant value of P< 0.05 at a dose of 200 mg/kg orally. Percentage inhibition of the anti-inflammation decreases steadily from the 1 hr to the 4 th hr for the hexane extract (11.7 to 1.5% ) while there was an increment in the ethyl acetate extract from 12% to 32.5% for the 1 and the 4 hr respectively when compared with the control. Conclusion: This study has shown that the extracts of H. crepitans leaves possessed a significant anti-oedematogenic effect on paw oedema induced by egg-albumin by inhibiting the release of mediators for the entire 4 h experimental period.

http://www.sciencedomain.org/download/MjUwMzhAQHBm.pdf

V. O. Olumekun

Papers

Antimicrobial Activities of Essential Oils fromHura crepitans (L.), Monodora myristica (GaertnDunal) and Xylopia aethiopica (Dunal A. Rich)Seeds