INAA AND XRF DETERMINATION OF ACTIVE ELEMENTS THAT PROMOTE SEXUAL AROUSAL IN SOME HERBS USED BY NORTHERN NIGERIAN WOMEN AS APHRODISIACS
INAA AND XRF DETERMINATION OF ACTIVE ELEMENTS THAT PROMOTE SEXUAL AROUSAL IN SOME HERBS USED BY NORTHERN NIGERIAN WOMEN AS APHRODISIACS
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Date
2015-08
Authors
HARUNA, RAKIYA
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Abstract
Several plants are used for the purpose of causing sexual arousal, inducing venereal desire or increasing sexual pleasure and performance. The effect produced by this herbs could be associated to their composition of certain mineral elements that where known to have aphrodisiac effect such as: Fe, I,Mg, Mn, Se and Zn. One of the major problems which may be associated with the use of herbal remedies is the presence of potentially toxic mineral elements in the herbs The main purpose of this study is to determine the essential elements, which the elements of interest for this study belongs to and non-essential elements. Instrumental neutron activation analysis and X-ray flourecence spectroscopy methods of analysis were used in the determination of the active elements that promote sexual arousal in the herbs:(Euphorbia hirta, Abrus precatorius (seeds), Abrus precatorius (leaves), Desmodium velutinum, Leptadania hastatae, Evolvulus alsinoides,Schwenkia americana Pentadon pentondrus, Crotalaria lachnesoma, and Crotalaria mucronata) Potassium and calcium where found to have the highest concentration in all the studied herbs except abrus precatorius seed with magnesium having the highest concentration. The concentration of potassium ranges from 24220±388mg/g in Euphobia hirta to 9281±501mg/g in crotalaria mucronata.and that of calcium ranges from 22220±756mg/g in leptadenia hastatae to 3878±283mg/g in crotalaria lanchnesoma. Some of the active elements in aphrodisiacs were also determined by this work they include (Fe, Mg , Mn and Zn,,) with the concentration of Fe ranging from 10660±181mg/g in Schwenkia americana to 289±11mg/g in crotalaria lanchnesoma, and that of Mg ranges from 41785± 148mg/g in Abrus precatorius (seeds) to 1782±219mg/g in crotalaria lanchnesoma ,the concentration of Mn ranges from 527±1mg/g in Crotalaria mucronata to 24.3±0.2mg/g in Euphobia hirta. All the studied herbs were found to be very good source of essentially nutritional elements.
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A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF A MASTER OF SCIENCE IN RADIATION BIOPHYSICS. DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS, FACULTY OF SCIENCE, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA.
Keywords
INAA,, XRF,, DETERMINATION,, ACTIVE ELEMENTS,, SEXUAL AROUSAL,, HERBS,, NORTHERN NIGERIAN WOMEN,, APHRODISIACS