Volume :

5

Issue :

1

Abstract :

Antioxidant compounds in food plays an important role as a health protecting factor. Scientific evidence suggests that antioxidant reduce risk for chronic diseases including 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 IC50. 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.