IN VITRO EVALUATION OF SNACK FROM SORGHUM-LIMA BEAN-COCOYAM COMPOSITE FLOUR IN POTENTIAL MANAGEMENT OF HYPERTENSION

Abstract

Global effort at managing cardiovascular diseases in humans has focused on promotion of healthy diets in the few decades. Such healthy diets include functional foods that are produced through compositing of indigenous food plants or by using the bioactive extracts of the indigenous plants to fortify local foods. Hypertension also called “silent killer” is one of the critical health conditions of humans for which inflammatory processes play major role in its pathophysiology. This study was designed to investigate the potential of using indigenous food plants including cocoyam, lima bean and Sorghum to manage hypertension The study produced biscuits using three flour samples: Sample A is 50:30:20 composite of sorghum, lima bean and cocoyam; Sample B is 100% Sorghum flour and Sample C is 100% Wheat flour. The produced biscuits were evaluated for chemical composition, invitro protein digestibility, amino acid composition, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-ACE and anti-AChE activities. The acceptable biscuit with increased protein (~15%), crude fibre desirable physical properties and in vitro protein digestibility (40-70%) when compared to those from 100% wheat flour were successfully obtained from the composite flour blends. The produced composite biscuits showed balanced amino acid profiles and better antioxidant activity (0.06-0.17 μg/ml), which effectively enhanced its ACE-and AChE-inhibition activities at low IC50 values (0.25 and 3 μg/ml), respectively. This study has show cased the ability of biscuit from 50%-Sorghum-30% lima bean-20% cocoyam flour blend when compared to those from 100% wheat flour, as potential and promising functional food, thus improving value addition to the locally grown underutilized crops, which are already going into extinction in developing countries