South Asian Research Journal of Natural Products

The emergence of multidrug resistant microorganisms and other forms of multiple drug failures has increased the quest for alternatives to conventional medicines. Garcinia kola is considered one of the most promising such alternatives. In order to test its efficacy against some oral infections, a total of seven oral bacterial isolates from different human samples and two standard cultures serving as control, were tested for their susceptibility to cold water, hot water, hexane and ethanol extracts of fruits of Garcinia kola whose phytochemical properties had been determined, using the agar well diffusion method. Results obtained showed that the ethanol extract was active against 80% of the test organisms, followed by cold water extract, which was active against 45.5% of the organisms. Extracts from hot water and hexane gave the least activities which were 18.8% and 15.5% respectively against the isolates. The minimum active concentrations of the extracts were different for the different extracts and microorganisms, although the ethanolic extract again gave the best results. The mainly positive results obtained during the study correlates well with the presence of several phytochemicals including steroids, flavonoids, saponins that have been reported in Garcinia kola. These findings partly explain the many positive health claims that have been attributed to the plant by many of its users in many parts of Nigeria and Africa.