Dietary antioxidant supplements: benefits of their combined use

Several dietary supplements claim medicinal benefits due to their composition in hydrophilic and lipophilic molecules, natural extracts or synthetic compounds with antioxidant properties. In the present work, the antioxidant activity of selected supplements taken in pills, capsules or infusions were studied either individually or combined. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was used to categorize the condensed formulations (pills and capsules), infusion bags and combined samples according with their antioxidant activity measured by radical scavenging activity, reducing power and lipid peroxidation inhibition using brain homogenates as models. AAF proved to have the highest antioxidant activity in all the assayed methods, either singly taken or included in mixtures. Furthermore, the mixtures containing this supplement revealed synergistic effects in 92% of the cases. The intake of antioxidant mixtures might provide some additional benefits.