Antioxidant activity in vitro of antidiabetic herbal mixtures

Abstract

Medicinal plants and their combinations due to the wide range of biologically active substances can influence on various links of the pathogenetic mechanism of development of diabetes mellitus and its complications. One of such combinations is two antidiabetic herbal mixtures with established hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic, antioxidant, hepatoprotective, pancreatoprotective activity in previous pharmacological study in vivo. Thus, the aim of this research was to study an antioxidant activity in vitro by DPPH radical scavenging activity, ferrous ion chelating capacity and ferric reducing power of the sample 1 (Urtica dioica leaf, Cichorium intybus roots, Rosa majalis fruits, Elymus repens rhizome, Taraxacum officinale roots), and the sample 2 (Arctium lappa roots, Elymus repens rhizome, Zea mays columns with stigmas, Helichrysum arenarium flowers, Rosa majalisfruits). Antioxidant activity was investigated by DPPH radical scavenging activity, ferrous ion chelating capacity and ferric reducing power of methanol extracts of antidiabetic herbal mixtures. The study showed that the IC50 of DPPH radicals inhibition in the sample 1 and sample 2 was 356.47±2.78 µg/mL and 344.29±3.11 µg/mL, respectively; the IC50 of chelating capacity in the sample 1 and sample 2 was 326.50±2.64 µg/mL and 288.38±2.64 µg/mL, respectively; the value of ferric reducing power of the sample 1 was 0.327 at 100 µg/mL and 0.689 at 1000 µg/mL; of the sample 2 – 0.363 at 100 µg/mL and 0.723 at 1000 µg/mL. Established pharmacological properties make these herbal mixtures perspective remedies for the prevention and treatment of diabetes type 2 and its complications in order to reduce oxidative stress by capturing free radicals and binding heavy metal ions.