Biological objects, antioxidant activity

Many methods are available for determining food antioxidant capacity, which is an important topic in food and nutrition research. However, there is a great need to standardize these methods because the frequent lack of an actual substrate in the procedure, the system composition, and the method of inducing oxidation could limit their accuracy. In fact, antioxidant activities in complex systems cannot be evaluated satisfactorily using a single test, and several test procedures may be required. The search for more specific assays that can be more directly related to oxidative deterioration of foods and biological systems should be the objective of future investigations. 

Definition of the total phenol antioxidant content and activity of compounds with respect to oxygen and its radicals in various biological objects by two electrochemical methods and analysis of obtained results. 

At present, there are a large number of various methods for determining the total AO content and also their activity with respect to free radicals in foodstuffs, biologically active additives, herbs and preparations, biological liquids and other objects [3]. However, it is impossible to compare the results obtained by different methods, since they are based on different principles of measurements, different modeling systems, and have different dimensions of the antioxidant activity index. In such cases, it is umeasonable to compare numerical values, but it is possible to establish a correlation between results obtained by different methods. 

Ones from the simplest methods for study of antioxidant activity of various biological objects are electrochemical methods, in particular, ammetiy, and voltammetry. A comparative analysis of the AO content and their activity in juice and extracts of herbs, extracts of tea and vegetative additives, and also in plasma of human blood is carried out in present work. Operability of methods has allowed studying also dynamics of change of the AO content and their activity in same objects during time. 

Antioxidant Activity of Various Biological Objects TABLE 2 (Continued) 247... 

For the last quarter of the century there was a considerable quantity of works devoted to research of the activity of antioxidants (AO) in herbs, foodstuff, drinks, biological liquids, and other objects. It is known that the increase in activity of free radical oxidation processes in a htrman organism leads to destruction of stmcture and properties of lipid membranes. There is a direct commrmication between the superfluous content of free radicals in an organism and occtrrrence of dangerous diseases [1,2]. The AO are class of biologically active substances which remove excessive free radicals, decreasing the lipid oxidation. Therefore, a detailed research of the total antioxidant activity of various biological objects represents doubtless interest. 

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