Solomon HabtemariamPharmacognosy Research Laboratories and Herbal Analysis Services UK,Chatham-Maritime,Kent,ME4 4TB,United Kingdom

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The African Moringa is to change the lives ofm illions in Ethiopia and far beyond

Solomon Habtemariam*
Pharmacognosy Research Laboratories and Herbal Analysis Services UK,Chatham-Maritime,Kent,ME4 4TB,United Kingdom

Letter to the Editor http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apjtb.2015.12.016

The leaves of Shiferaw(A frican Moringa,M.stenopetala) areeaten like cabbage;mostof the plantpartsare used for curing various ailments;the dried leaves are traded as nutritional supplementand asmedicine particularly for diabetes and associated disorders;the seeds are good sources of edible oil as well as sources of biofuel;the seeds are excellent fl occulentagents and employed forwater puri fi cation,etc.Not surprisingly and forall the claimed usage,the plant is also called‘The M iracle Plant’. Formany peoplewho are fam iliarw ith the story of‘TheM iracle Tree’,it exclusively means the Indian Moringa[Moringa oleifera(M.oleifera)]which has been scienti fi cally well characterised and traded world-w ide in large volumes.It is also introduced tomany A frican countries for itsmultipurpose usage. A lthough the A frican Moringa(Shiferaw,M.stenopetala)has very sim ilar usage and morphology w ith the Indian Moringa,it never showed superiority in any form and ithasbeen aworry by some in the scienti fi c community that the search for an economically viable crop may push out the native A frican Moringa from the game.A comparative analysis of the goodies com ing from the two Moringa species would thus be vital not only for large-scale utilisation of the plants butalso in reserving the genetic poolof the native African Moringa.Some important pioneering scienti fi c studies on the plant has already been done in the past two decades and the earlier multi-centred A frican research efforts has been summarised by the prom inent Ethiopian biologist,Professor Yalem tsehay Mekonnen[2].

Fortunately,just few months aftermy Ethiopian trip,Iwas in another plant collectionm ission to India and Iwas also able to bring w ith me samples of M.oleifera.These two plants being genetically related,they have quite few group of compounds in common but the African Moringa appears to be distinctly different from its Indian relative.The simplicity of the A frican Moringa leaves'chem istry is evenmore astonishing.It contains one predom inantly active chem ical compound called rutin in as much as 2.3%of the dry weight[3,4].Interestingly,this compound is not present in detectable amount in the Indian Dear Editor, Ivividly recall one ofmy medicinal plant collection trips in the southern regions of Ethiopia back in 1986.Besides collecting few plants of interest,wewere asking the locals to show us medicinal plants of importance in the region.W ithin few m inutes,a group of enthusiastic youngmen broughtusbranchesof massive pinnate leaves of a plant locally called in Amharic Shiferaw(also called A leko in Oromo,Figure 1).W ewere told that it is a good medicine for treating diabetes(“illness from sugar”as they call it).By then,Iwasworking w ith Chem istry Department colleagues at the Addis Ababa University w ith an ambitious m ission to establish the pharmacological basis of Ethiopian medicinal plants.As Idid not have the experimental model for diabetes,however,I left Shiferaw's collection for another day.Since then,I have investigated here in the UK hundredsofmedicinalplants collected from almostall cornersof theworld whilemy prom iseof collecting Shiferaw for scienti fi c studieswas nothing but all forgotten.

When Ivisited Addis Ababa in the summerof2013,Inoticed that Shiferaw has made it all the way to the capital and far beyond.Shiferaw in Amharicmeans“feared by a thousand”but there now seems to be no fear of using this plant at all.Every department food store and others were selling the powdered dried leaves w ith endless claim.People that I visited were drinking herbal teas of the leaves in theevening.When Iwent to Addis Ababa University to visitold friends,studentswere busy experimenting on the plant.I felt the impact of this plant even more when I came to know about the work being done by international Aid agencieswho have been assisting the plantation of hundreds of thousands of Moringa trees in some areas of Ethiopia as partof their programme on enhancing the long-term adaptability of people to environmental changes.The hope is that the fastgrow ingmultipurpose Moringa tree in a less-fertile soil and/or drier habitat could serve as a reliable source of food and income tomany communities.Moringa leaves[3].Rutin being naturally sourced from plants for its various nutraceutical and pharmaceutical usage,the African Moringa now turned out to be a good potential candidate for isolating this biomolecule.Rutin is also a known antioxidant, antidiabetic and multifunctional natural compound that could be responsible for the variety ofmedicinal claims of the leaves of the A frican Moringa[5].Coincidentally,it is the Southern regions of Ethiopia(namely‘Kaffa’)that gave the world the gift of coffee.It also appears that the active ingredient of coffee,caffeine,is present inmany varieties of coffee seeds in less than 2.3%on dry weight basis.W ith careful selection of plants growing under different environmental conditions and breeding experiments,there is therefore no doubt that a supervariety of the A frican Moringa that may serve as a better food/medicine could be found.

Figure 1.Moringa stenopetala(M.stenopetala)[1].

The rational utilisation of Moringa seeds for nutritional, pharmaceutical and other usages,likewater puri fi cation,should be based on removal of the edible oils in the fi rst instance.This can be done by various extraction means such as supercritical carbon dioxide or a cheapermethods of solventextraction.W e could easily get a yield of 25%by extraction w ith petroleum ether but a higher yield has also been reported.The left over plantmaterial from the oil utilisation(food,biofuel,etc.)could be further extracted w ith water.Incredibly,this product is a potentantim icrobial and fl occulentagentand can be utilised for water puri fi cation.It also appear that the simplicity of the A frican Moringa chem istry is extended to the seeds.A single molecule,glucomoringin asamajoractive componentasoppose to a complex m ixture of glucosinolate products in M.oleifera seeds is apparent.We are currently studying on these biomolecules but the result from our laboratory and others clearly demonstrated that the A frican Moringa is distinctly different from the Indian species.

So far,the utilisation of Shiferaw(the A frican Moringa)for itsmultiple usage has effectively been demonstrated bym illions of people at the local level.The next step is to combine local know ledge w ith science and make this natural gift cross big geographicalboundaries asa commercial cash crop.The trend in this regard is very prom ising too and hopefully governmentand international Aid organisationsw ill continue using their funding to realise people supporting themselves via exploiting their untapped natural resources.

Con fl ict of interest statement

Ideclare that Ihave no con fl ict of interest.

References

[1]Top Tropicals.Moringa stenopetala.FtM yers:Top Tropicals;2015. [Online]Available from:http://toptropicals.com/catalog/uid/ moringa_stenopetala.htm[Accessed on 15th August,2015]

[2]M ekonnen Y.The multi-purpose Moringa tree:Ethiopia.Paris: M oringaNew s;2015.[Online]Available from:http://www. moringanews.org/documents/stenopetala.pdf[Accessed on 15th August,2015]

[3]Habtemariam S.Investigation into the antioxidant and antidiabetic potential of Moringa stenopetala:identi fi cation of the active principles.Nat Prod Commun 2015;10(3):475-8.

[4]Habtemariam S,Varghese GK.Extractability of rutin in herbal tea preparations of Moringa stenopetala leaves.Beverages 2015;1(3): 169-82.

[5]Habtemariam S,Lentini G.The therapeutic potential of rutin for diabetes:an update.M iniRev Med Chem 2015;15(7):524-8.

*Corresponding author:Solomon Habtemariam,Pharmacognosy Research Laboratories and Herbal Analysis Services UK,Chatham-Maritime,Kent,ME4 4TB, United K ingdom.

Tel:+44(0)208 331 8302

Fax:+44(0)208 331 9805

E-mail:s.habtem ariam@herbalanalysis.co.uk

Peer review under responsibility of Hainan M edical University.The journal implements double-blind peer review practiced by specially invited international editorial boardmembers.

A rticle history:

16 Nov 2015

Accepted 18 Dec 2015

Available on line 14 Jan 2016

2221-1691/Copyright?2016 Hainan Medical University.Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.This is an open accessarticle under the CC BY-NC-ND license(http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).