Nutritional characterisation and antioxidant capacity of different tissues of Artemisia annua L. Ebiamadon Andi Brisibe a,b, * , Umoren E. Umoren c , Fraideh Brisibe d , Pedro M. Magalhäes e , Jorge F.S. Ferreira f , Devanand Luthria g , Xianli Wu h , Ronald L. Prior h a Department of Genetics and Biotechnology, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria b Department of Biological Sciences, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, P.M.B 71 Yenagoa, Nigeria c Department of Animal Science, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria d Department of Veterinary Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri, Nigeria e Chemical, Biological and Agricultural Pluridisciplinary Research Centre (CPQBA), University of Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil f USDA, ARS, Appalachian Farming System Research Center, 1224 Airport Road, Beaver, West Virginia 25813, USA g USDA-ARS, 10300 Baltimore Avenue, Building 161 BARC-East Beltsville, Maryland 20705-2350, USA h Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center, 1212 Marshall Street, Little Rock, Arkansas 72202, USA article info Article history: Received 20 October 2008 Received in revised form 22 November 2008 Accepted 14 January 2009 Keywords: Antioxidants Artemisia annua Conventional feed Iron Livestock Oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) abstract Evaluation of different tissues of Artemisia annua for their nutritional contents and antioxidant potential demonstrated that the leaves and inflorescences had the highest percentage of protein, crude fat and in vitro digestible fractions but the lowest levels of detergent fibres. These tissues also had the highest composition of the major elements as well as manganese and copper. Their relatively high amino acid and vitamin profiles equally reflect a desirable nutritional balance adding to their high antioxidant capac- ities. Collectively, these high levels of the different nutritional constituents and antioxidant activities cou- pled with the very low and often negligible levels of inherent anti-nutritive factors, especially in the leaves, which are far below recommended toxic levels, establishes A. annua as a good reservoir of nutri- ents and antioxidants that might favour its use as a potential herbal tonic by humans or an important supplementary feed additive for livestock production systems. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction It is often common that livestock production in many develop- ing countries is hampered by the two major problems of shortage of adequately balanced feed and the increasing cost of feed ingre- dients, which has inevitably led to poor utilisation of feed. En- zymes and antibiotics in feed, for example, which serve as aids to nutrition and are widely used in intensive livestock production systems in developed societies to improve the digestibility of feeds and utilisation of nutrients, are not available to many re- source-poor farmers in developing countries. Aside from this, is the problem associated with the lack of appropriate medication, such that control of many diseases during animal husbandry is mainly periodic. However, even at these levels of medication the cost is huge and often beyond the purchasing capacity of many resource-poor farmers, who have had to resort to the use of natural products such as plant extracts, which are bountiful in their localities and are less harmful to human and animal health, for the treatment of some of these common ailments in livestock. Besides, the fact that some serious disadvantages asso- ciated with synthetic drugs such as those used in the treatment of helminthosis and coccidiosis during poultry production have be- come evident, including resistance and the presence of traces of these drugs at later ends of the food chain due to their indiscrim- inate use has given farmers further encouragement to seek natu- ral products. Various types of natural dietary supplements have been ex- plored recently as sustainable alternatives for the control of many diseases afflicting the global livestock industry and they seem to be quite efficacious. Amongst the botanical resources that have been tested and found to be quite effective for possible use as prophylac- tic or therapeutic feed additives in poultry against coccidiosis, for example, are Azadirachta indica (Tipu, Pasha, & Ali, 2002), Sophora flavescens (Youn & Noh, 2001) and Artemisia annua (Allen & Fetter- er, 2002). Artemisia annua is a vigorous growing annual weedy herb, usually single-stemmed, reaching up to 2–3 m in height. The 0308-8146/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2009.01.033 * Corresponding author. Address: Department of Genetics and Biotechnology, University of Calabar, Mary Slessor Road, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria. Tel.: +234 80 23187847; fax: +234 87 233656. E-mail address: brisibe2002@yahoo.co.uk (E.A. Brisibe). Food Chemistry 115 (2009) 1240–1246 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Chemistry journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodchem