In vitro evaluation of the antioxidant activities of carbohydrates

Publication date: Available online 14 April 2016 Source:Bioactive Carbohydrates and Dietary Fibre Author(s): Shuzhen Hu, Junyi Yin, Shaoping Nie, Junqiao Wang, Glyn O. Phillips, Mingyong Xie, Steve W. Cui In the current study, we evaluated the antioxidant activities of highly purified monosaccharides, oligosaccharides and complex carbohydrates using six in vitro antioxidant assays, including oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), β-carotene bleaching assay, 1, 1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging, hydroxyl radical scavenging and superoxide radicals scavenging methods. The results suggested that monosaccharides and oligosaccharides scarcely exhibited antioxidant activities in vitro. For example in the β-carotene bleaching assay the inhibitory effects of monosaccharides at 1mg/mL were between 0.24% to 2.25% although galacturonic acid demonstrated some inhibitory effects (8.59%). Significant lower antioxidant activities were observed for complex carbohydrates compared to ascorbic acid and BHT (e.g. ferric reducing antioxidant power by the FRAP assay,>1800μmol Fe (Ⅱ) /g were observed for ascorbic acid and BHT compared to only 10-60μmol Fe (Ⅱ) /g for complex carbohydrates, and 1.60 and 6.43μmol Fe (Ⅱ) /g for mono and oligosaccharides. The observed antioxidant activities for complex carbohydrates are correlated with the presence of phenolic and/or protein components. The findings from...
Source: Bioactive Carbohydrates and Dietary Fibre - Category: Food Science Source Type: research