Innate antioxidant activity of some traditional formulations

Herbal medicine is the oldest form of healthcare known to humanity. Recently, much attention is being directed toward the use of antioxidants. There are some very commonly used Ayurvedic preparations that might have inbuilt antioxidant activity, and their therapeutic potential can be partially attributable to its antioxidant activity. Hence, it was proposed to find out antioxidant activity of such common formulations. Estimation of innate antioxidant activity of some commonly used traditional formulations. In this study, five formulations were evaluated for antioxidant activity in comparison to gallic acid (standard) using the in vitro reducing power method and superoxide radical scavenging activity by dimethyl sulfoxide method followed by calculation of scavenging activity and inhibitory concentration 50% (IC₅₀). The result shows that Ayurvedic drug extracts possess good reducing power and antioxidant activity. Laxmivilas Ras shows higher reducing power ranging from 117 ± 0.021 to 0.176 ± 0.012 as compared to other extracts. The drug extracts were also found to be an efficient scavenger of superoxide radical. The IC₅₀ values for Laxmivilas Ras, Agnitundi Vati, Ajmodadi Churna, Tribhuvankirti Rasa, gallic acid (standard) and Sitopladi Churna, were found to be 50.07, 98.41, 105.13, 116.39, 176.80, and 200.17, respectively. From this study, it can be concluded that the above Ayurvedic formulations possess antioxidant property. However, work could be initiated on the isolation and identification of these antioxidant components.