Description

Antioxidant is a molecule capable of slowing or preventing the oxidation process and protects the cells against reactive free radicals and chelating metals in the body. In long term antioxidants play important role in the prevention and onset of various degenerative diseases like arthrosclerosis, heart attack, ageing, cancer etc. Antioxidants are naturally found in a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and other plant parts. Nowadays restrictions on the use of synthetic antioxidants are being imposed because of their toxic properties. Thus many researches are trying to find newer and newer sources of antioxidants of natural origin with broad-spectrum actions. As majority of the rich diversity of Indian medicinal plants are yet to be scientifically evaluated for such properties, there is an attempt made here to find the potential antioxidant plant sources. Twenty one plants having ethnobotanical medicinal importance are selected for the present study and were extracted using four different polarity solvents and eighty four extracts were prepared. The extracts were screened and Phenol content estimation done using Folin-Ciocalteau Method.