Phytochemical, Proximate and Mineral Analyses of Urena lobata Stems from Imo State Nigeria

Urena lobata plant is a weed that wildly grows in Nigeria, especially in Imo State, the eastern part of Nigeria. The essence of this study is to analyze the phytochemical, proximate and mineral constituents of Urena lobata stems for medicinal and nutritional purposes. The analysis on the phytochemicals was done by standard methods. The proximate constituents were analyzed by the Association of Official Analytical Chemists method and other standard practices. The mineral analysis was done by Carpenter and Hendricks method. The results showed that the phytochemical analysis of Urena lobata plant depicted the presence of alkaloids, tannins, phytates, flavonoids, saponins, and cyanogenic glycoside; having quantities (mg/100g) of 4.93±0.01, 8.94 ± 0.006, 2.52 ± 0.015, 1.34 ± 0.02, 0.25 ± 0.01, and 0.22 ± 0.01 respectively. From the analysis of the proximate constituents done on the plant, the following parameters were obtained; moisture content, crude protein, fiber, crude fat/crude lipid, ash content, carbohydrate, and energy value, with values as 6.12 ± 0.74%, 4.70 ± 0.31%, 21.33 ± 0.03%, 0.56 ± 0.015%, 7.26 ± 0.084%, 59.67 ± 0.48% and 264.44 ± 0.35 Kcal/100g respectively. The minerals (mg/100g) obtained from the mineral analysis include; calcium, sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, iron and zinc, with magnesium having the highest value (65.32 ± 0.015) and iron the least value (3.61 ± 0.006). Based on the results obtained, the plant was established to be useful for both medicinal and nutritional purposes.