Evaluation of antioxidant activity of aerial part of Argemone mexicana linn

Abstract

Antioxidant compounds in  food  plays  an  important role  as  a  health  protecting factor.  Scientific  evidence suggests that antioxidant reduce risk for chronic diseases i ncluding cancer and heart diseases. Primary source of naturally occurring antioxidants are grains, fruits and vegetables. Plant sourced food antioxidants like vitamin C,  vitamin  E,  carotenes,  phenolic  acids,  phytate  and  phytoestrogens have  been  recognized  as  having  the potential to reduce disease risk. Most of the antioxidant compounds in a typical diet are derived from plant sources and belong to various classes of compounds with a wide variety of physical and chemical properties. The free radical scavenging activity was done by DPPH-scavenging model and Hydrogen-peroxide scavenging model. The Hydrogen-peroxide scavenging showed the 87.1% which is comparable to the standard Ascorbic acid  (90.5  %).  It  was  found  that  the  ethanolic  extract  of  Argemone  mexicana  linn  (EEAM)  showed  the maximum percentage inhibition of 61% whereas the aqueous extract (AEAM) showed the least inhibition i.e. 19.2. The antioxidant activity of the plant extracts was expressed as IC 50. The IC50  value is defined as the concentration (in µg/ml) of extracts that inhibits the formation of DPPH and hydrogen peroxide radicals by 50 %. All the tests were performed in triplicate and the graph was plotted with average of three observations.