Oil Palm Leaf: A New Functional Food Ingredient for Health and Disease Prevention

The Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) leaves has 8% higher total polyphenols content than green tea extract and contains epigallocatechin, catechin, epicatechin, epigallocatechin gallate, epicatechin gallate amongst their various flavonoids glucosides. The health benefits of OPLE on breast cancer, diabetes, hypertension, inflammation, oxidative stress, neurodegeneration, cognitive functions, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular, liver, kidney and neuroprotective properties and hypercholesterol are reviewed. The OPLE have good vasodilative, phytoestrogenic and bone mass enhancing properties, valuable for postmenopausal women. The OPLE helped modulate the antioxidative defence enzymes and reduce blood Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) by up-regulating the LDL receptors ex vivo. The safety and acute toxicity of OPLE showed a no adverse effect dose at 2 g/kg. Sub-chronic daily supplement of 500 mg/kg body weight (bw) for 3 months in rodents showed no significant adverse effects. The catechin-rich OPLE on its own at 500 mg/kg body weight/day was not toxic to normal rodents under subchronic continuous consumption for 3 months and was shown to be safe for humans at 1 g/day for prolonged periods. Oil Palm Leaf: A New Functional Food Ingredient for Health and Disease Prevention