Bioscience Methods 2015, Vol.6, No.2, 1-7
1
Research Article Open Access
Comparative Analysis of Phenolic Content and Anti-oxidant Activity of Dietary
Vegetables
Rohit Sharma
1
., Sarabjot Kaur
2
.
1
College of Engineering Studies, University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, Dehradun, Uttarakhand-248007, India
2
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Assam University Silchar-788011, India
Corresponding author email: Email
Bioscience Methods, 2015, Vol.6, No.2 doi: 10.5376/bm.2015.06.0002
Received: 05 May, 2015
Accepted: 10 Jun., 2015
Published: 29 Jul., 2015
Copyright
©
2015 Rohit Sharma and Sarabjot Kaur., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Rohit Sharma and Sarabjot Kaur., 2015, Comparative Analysis of Phenolic Content and Anti-oxidant Activity of Dietary Vegetables, Bioscience Methods,
Vol.6, No.2 1
-
7 (doi
Abstract
The anti-oxidant activity and total phenolic contents of alcoholic extracts from 14 vegetables were evaluated by using a
model system consisting of β-carotene and linoleic acid and Folin-Ciocalteu method. The total phenolic of the extracts was
determined spectrophotometrically according to the Folin-Ciocalteu procedure and ranged from 63 to 33 mg per 100 gm on a fresh
weight basic.
Chenopodium album
, Beta vulgaris,
Brassica juncea
, pea pods, and Brassica oleracea have high anti-oxidant activity.
The anti-oxidant activity expressed as per percent inhibition of oxidation ranged from a high of 70% in
Chenopodium album
extracts
to a low of 25% in Raphanus sativus. Other vegetables found to have high anti-oxidant activity (>60%) were Beta vulgaris, Brassica
juncea
, pea pods,
Brassica oleracea
. Anti-oxidant activity correlated linearly significantly and positively with total phenolics. The
results indicate that vegetables containing high phenolics may provide a source of dietary anti-oxidants.
Keywords
β-carotene; linoleic acid; Folin-Ciocalteu reagent; green leafy vegetables
1 Introduction
Plants consumed by humans may contain thousands of
different phenolic compounds. The effects of dietary
phenolics are of great current interest, due to their anti
-oxidative and possible anti -carcinogenic activity.
Phenolic compounds also function as free-radical
scavengers, reducing agents, and quenchers of singlet-
oxygen formation. Ancient plants are still in use
today. They are taken as remedies for cough (ginger),
intestinal bleeding (pomegranate), diarrhea (banana)
and other medicinal conditions. These plants attracted
the interest of many scholars, such as botanists,
biochemists and pharmacognosist (natural drug
specialists). They are all interested to find out the
health benefits and the health promoting effects of
these plants and the nature of the active principals they
possess. (Wong et al., 2006) One of the documented
health promoting activities of many fruits and vegetables
is their ability to scavenge naturally produced free
radicals and hence acting as antioxidants. Free radicals
are normally generated in substantial amounts as a
by-product of various internal metabolic processes in
aerobic organisms such as phagocytosis, neutrophils
defense, auto oxidation of catecholamine and
carboxylation or hydroxylation reactions. All of these
processes happen in various ways at different times
and site (Jose, 2013).
Antioxidants are compounds that can delay or inhibit
the oxidation of lipids or other molecules by inhibiting
the initiation or propagation of oxidizing chain reactions.
The antioxidant activity of phenolic compounds is
mainly due to their redox properties, which can play
an important role in adsorbing and neutralizing free
radicals, quenching singlet and triplet oxygen, or
decomposing peroxides. In general, there are two
basic categories of antioxidants, natural and synthetic.
Recently, interest has increased considerably in finding
naturally occurring antioxidants for use in foods or
medicinal materials to replace synthetic antioxidants,
which are being restricted due to their carcinogenicity
(Kaur et al., 2002).
Over the past 10 years, researchers and food
manufacturers have become increasingly interested in
polyphenols. The chief reason for this interest is the
recognition of the antioxidant properties of polyphenols,
their great abundance in our diet, and their probable
role in the prevention of various diseases associated
