Abstract

A NUTRITIONAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL BENEFIT OF OKRA (ABELMOSCHUS ESCULENTUS)

Prakash B. Dive*, Ganesh S. Waghule, Priya Sadaphal and Aniket Bhagwat

ABSTRACT

Okra is an economically important vegetable crop of significance belongs to family Malvaceae. Okra is one of the traditional plant and act as a nutritional source for both medical and culinary purposes. The plant is widely grown in tropical and subtropical part of world. Okra is a rich source of bioactive compounds such as flavonoids, polysaccharides, polyphenols, folate, amino acids, carbohydrates, fibers, mineral, vitamins, pectin and a polyunsaturated fatty acid essential for human nutrition and has many therapeutic uses. Different part of the plant and its Phytochemicals constituents used in traditional medicine as anti-oxidant, anti-diabetic, gastro-protective, anti-adhesive, diuretic, immunomodulating and anticancer. They are also widely used in food and pharmaceutical industries. The world is filled with wide range of diseases in which medicinal plants are gift of nature to human being to have diseases free healthy life. Medicinal plants such as okra are now being accepted as the alternative options for combating various simple or life-threatening ailments. Various efforts had established the effectiveness and its corresponding contents on a number of ill-health, there is much hope in future that okra might be able to rescue humankind from these evolving derangements causing setback to their living and survival.

Keywords: Okra, Nutritional source, anticancer, immunomodulating, life threatening.