Antioxidant Activity of Some Common Plants

The methanolic crude extracts of some commonly used medicinal plants were screened for their free radical scavengingproperties using ascorbic acid as standard antioxidant. Free radical scavenging activity was evaluated using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl(DPPH) free radical. The overall antioxidant activity of green tea (Camellia sinensis Linn.) was the strongest, followed indescending order by black tea (Camellia sinensis Linn.), Eugenia caryophyllus (Spreng.) Bullock and Harrison, Piper cubeba Linn.,Zingiber officinale Roscoe and Piper nigrum Linn. Trigonella foenum graecum Linn. and Elettaria cardamomum (Linn.) Matonshowed weak free radical scavenging activity with the DPPH method. All the methanolic extracts exhibited antioxidant activitysignificantly. The IC50 of the methanolic extracts ranged between 6.7 ± 0.1 and 681.5 ± 8.4 (mu)g/ml and that of ascorbic acid was8.9 ± 0.1 (mu)g/ml. The study reveals that the consumption of these spices would exert several beneficial effects by virtue of theirantioxidant activity.