## 4 Discussion
### Bioactive Compounds and Antioxidant Activity  
As a food source, fresh fruits and their derivatives offer vital dietary micronutrients as well as bioactive substances like vitamins and polyphenols. Vitamin C is an essential nutrient and an antioxidant compound described as being found in abundance in baobab fruit powder [23; 39; 40]. According to research described in the _OJEU_[39], the amount of vitamin C found in baobab fruit pulp is three times greater than that found in oranges. Despite the importance of vitamin C, few or no studies mention vitamin E, an outstanding natural antioxidant. In addition to its antioxidant properties, vitamin E is involved in immunological function, cell signaling, gene expression regulation, and other metabolic processes [41]. Thus, protein kinase C, an enzyme involved in smooth muscle cells, and platelet and monocyte proliferation and differentiation, is inhibited by alpha-tocopherol. Additionally, vitamin E raises the production of two enzymes that limit the metabolism of arachidonic acid, increasing the endothelium's release of prostacyclin, which dilates blood vessels and prevents platelet aggregation [42]. Given its beneficial properties, the content of vitamin E was determined in our study. To our knowledge, no study has reported the vitamin E content in baobab fruit pulp. Only two vitamers were detected, \(\alpha\)-tocopherol, and \(\beta\)-tocopherol (0.54 mg/100 g and 0.0509 mg/100 g, respectively). Even though the fruit pulp contained less vitamin E than vitamin C (163.8-288.9 mg/100 g), as described in other baobab fruits from Angola [14], this determination is innovative. Indeed, in addition to the health benefits of vitamin E as to human metabolism, the antioxidant activity of vitamin E may contribute to food preservation, reducing the negative impact of chemical reactions on food systems by improving the safety, nutritional value, and shelf-life of food products. Thus, our results may suggest the use of this fruit pulp as a functional ingredient for food products [43]. Regarding the polyphenic contents in our samples, substantial variability in the TPC of baobab fruit pulp was observed among the different extracts in our study. The hydroalcoholic extract exhibited the highest concentration (1573.0 mg GAE/100 g), followed by the aqueous one (1038.6 mg GAE/100 g). As for the measurement of bioactive compounds (TPC and TFC), the ethanolic extract was revealed to be the worst extraction solvent. [PERSON] et al. [44] reported total phenolic contents of Malawi baobab pulp methanolic extracts ranging from 1870 to 4057.5 mg GAE/100 g. Another study on baobab fruit extracts from different locations of Sudan described phenolic contents ranging from 15.50 to 99.66 mg GAE/g [45]. Fruit pulp extracts from Madagascar presented 1090 mg GAE/100 g of total phenolic content [46], and those obtained in Burkina Faso showed a variation in total phenolic content between 3520 and 4060 mg GAE/100 g [15]. However lower total phenolic contents were reported in methanolic baobab fruits collected in Angola, ranging from 460.5 mg GAE/100 g to 972.2 mg GAE/100 g [14]. As previously stated, these differences can be related to both environmental conditions [23] and the nature of the extracting solvent. For instance, [PERSON] et al. [5] used different solvents on baobab fruit pulp and reported higher TPC values in acetone extract, when compared to methanolic extract. However, for aqueous and ethanolic extracts, the values reported by the same authors were significantly lower than those obtained in this work. According to earlier research, the nature of the solvent applied affects both the effectiveness of the extraction and the amounts of phenolic compounds extracted [15; 44]. Additionally, extraction times and temperatures and the maceration or pulverization of the samples possibly influence the TPC results.