Chemical analysis of olive and palm pollen: Antioxidant and antimicrobial activation properties

Pollen is bee-product known fir its medical properties from ancient times. In our days is increasingly used as health food supplement and especially as a tonic primarily with appeal to the elderly to ameliorate the effects of ageing. The aim of this study was to evaluate the chemical composition, phenolic content, flavonoids content, antioxidant activity and antibacterial activity of pollen obtained from olive and palm plants. The content of moisture, protein, lipids, total sugars, crude fiber and minerals, as well as the content activity by the DPPH free radical scavenging method (2, 2-diphenyl-1picryl-hydrazl) were determined. The mean contents of moisture, protein and sugars were 5.00%, 21.20% and 47.50%, respectively, and the predominant minerals were phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. The contents of phenolic compounds and total flavonoids were 422.00ppm and 130.50ppm as quercetin, respectively. High scavenging activities were found for the free radical DPPH, with EC50 (Minimum concentration required of the DPPH by 50%). The present studies also, verified that the presence of pollen differentially affected the growth of bacteria under study, depending this on the microorganism and the pollen used. Pollen of olive showed high antioxidant activity probably due to the high content of phenolic compounds present in pollen.