Antimicrobial and antihelminthic properties of shea butter (<i>Vitellaria paradoxa</i>)

Abstract

The phytochemical, antimicrobial and antihelminthic screening of the crude extract of three types of Vitellaria paradoxa (shea butter) was investigated in this study. The crude extracts were dissolved in di-methylsulfoxide. The phytochemical constituents of the crude extracts were accessed and compared. Clinical isolates under aseptic conditions were collected from the Medical Microbiology Laboratory, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital and further morphological and biochemical tests were carried out to identify this clinical isolates as; Staphylococcus sp., Escherichia sp., Pseudomonas sp., Klebsiella sp., Streptococcus sp and Candida sp. Inoculums were prepared and adjusted to 0.5ml Mc Farland standard of each test bacterium. It was spread onto sterile Muller Hinton Agar plates so as to achieve even growth. The plates were allowed to dry and a sterile cork borer (6.0mm diameter) was used to bore wells in the agar plates. Ofloxacine and Fluconazole was used as bacteria and fungi control respectively. The crude yellow extracts exhibited inhibitory activities that were found to be higher than crude white and ivory colored extract on all the test organisms. Despite the crude yellow extract exhibited higher inhibitory activities than the other extracts; the antibacterial activity was low in 10^-1 to 10^-4 dilutions for some bacteria. The crude extracts revealed the presence of Alkaloids, flavonoids, Cardiac glycosides, saponnin, and carbohydrates. Anthraquinnone and phlobatannin were absent in the extracts. This study also revealed that shea butter has no anti-helminth effect after 24hours exposure of the eggs of Ascaris lumbricoides and Trichuris trichuria in the shea oil sample rather; the DMSO used as control killed the eggs. This calls for further investigation.