The Palm oil is rich in nutritional content that is very much needed by the Indonesian people. Not only limited for cooking oil production, the palm oil can be also used as raw material to produce a variety of health supplement products and pharmaceutical products.
JAKARTA – The Chairperson of the Working Team for Nutrition Adequacy Standards and Quality of Maternal and Child Health Nutrition Services at the Ministry of Health, Mahmud Fauzi, said recently that Indonesia is now dealing with a triple burden of malfunction phenomenon, consisting of malnutrition, overweight and micronutrient deficiencies.
“It means that the health problems facing Indonesian people are not only about malnutrition, but also problems of over-nutrition,” said Fauzi when addressing a public discussion on food and health ingredients and its safety at the Indonesian Palm Oil Research Week (SHIELD) 2024 on Friday (04/10/2024).
The discussion was also addressed by a number of other speakers, including Sapto Tranggono (PT Kemurgi Indonesia) on the topic of “High Nutrient Edible Oil from Palm Oil”, Dr. Frisda Rimbun Panjaitan (PPKS) on “The Potential of Red Palm Kernel Oil as a Food Supplement”, Dr. Eng. Asep Bayu (BRIN) on “Nanovite: Super vitamin E from Palm Oil”, Indra Saptiama, M.Sc (BRIN) on “Carbon Nano particles from Palm Oil Waste as Aerosol Material for Diagnosis of Pulmonary Embolism”, and Prof. Ir. Burhanudin Sundu, M.Sc.Ag., Ph.D (Tadulako University) on “Chicken Feed Based on Palm Kernel Meal”.
Associate Expert Researcher at the Vaccine and Drug Research Center of the National Research and Innovation Board (BRIN), Dr. Eng. Asep Bayu said they conducted a research on super vitamin E which is rich in tocotrienols as an immune therapy for cancer. Currently, the fatty acid by-product of palm oil, or what is called Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD) is used for soap and biodiesel.
“In terms of tocotrienol content, it is the highest compared to other vegetable oil fatty acid distillates. The tocotrienol has very high economic value because its biological activity is twice better than that of tocopherol,” said Asep.
Junior Expert Researcher at the Research Center for Radioisotope Technology, Radiopharmaceuticals and Biodosimetry of BRIN, Indra Saptiama, M.Sc, said that lungs imaging as a type of ventilation imaging using carbon nano aerosols marked 99 mTc produced from a commercial generator.
According to him, the use of palm oil waste as raw material to produce the substitute carbon aerosols will provide added commercial value. Stages of implemented research is started from making palm nano particles, then formulating carbon nano particle carrier powder and marking Tc-99m on carbon nano particles.
The PPKS researcher, Dr. Frisda Rimbun Panjaitan Research pointed out that the focus of her research was on red palm kernel oil (RKO) which is high in oleic acid and low in palmitate (HOLP-RPSO). Meanwhile, HOLP-RPSO contains high levels of phytonutrients. PKO is rich in medium chain fatty acids (MCFA).
The research formulated four RKOs with a variety of HOLP-RPSO and PKO ratios into RKO-A, RKO-B, RKO-C, and RKO-D. It is aimed to determine the antibacterial potential of each RKO and its phytonutrient composition, which will then provide a better understanding for future food and pharmaceutical research. The blending of the two raw materials makes RKO having a high phytonutrient content (carotene, vitamin E and squalene) and MCFA which is known to have good antibacterial capability. This is what makes RKO as one of the palm oil derivatives having the potential to be used as food supplements and for the pharmaceutical products. (*)
Sawitindonesia.com (2024). Sawit Dapat Dijadikan Suplemen Kesehatan. https://sawitindonesia.com/sawit-dapat-dijadikan-suplemen-kesehatan/ : 12 November 2024
