The Antioxidant Activity of the Essential Oil of Different Parts of Juniperus foetidissima Willd. in Lipid System

It is believed that the cell damages caused by free radicals are playing a major role in the ageing process and other human diseases. The free radicals can stabilize or deactivating by antioxidants before they attack cells. Synthetic antioxidants have been suspected to cause or promote negative health effects. Therefore finding new and safe effective natural antioxidants is needed as alternatives of commercial antioxidants. The activity of the essential oils and their main compounds has been investigated as natural antioxidants. In this study the essential oils of leaves of male and female and fruits of Juniperus foetidissima as well as their main components were examined for their antioxidant activities using lipid systems. GC and GC-MS were employed to study the compositions of the essential oils. The antioxidant activity of the essential oils of leaves of male and female and fruits of J. foetidissima and their major components were tested using TBARS (thiobarbituric acid reactive species) test and linoleic acid-derived conjugated dienes production inhibition test. Vitamin E was used as positive control in both tests. The test samples showed a very wide range of activity. Within the tested compounds α-pinene was the weakest of all. Generally the essential oils obtained from fruits and leaves of male and female trees of J. foetidissima showed a good antioxidant activity in high concentration when compared with the activity of vitamin E. Among the tested essential oils, the oil of the male leaves of J. foetidissima showed the highest antioxidant activity while the oil of the leaves of the female plant showed the lowest activity. However the nature of compounds and their solubility in aqueous and organic phases in the applied test systems may affects the observed results of antioxidant activity determination. © 2013, Copyright Har Krishan Bhalla & Sons.