Vol. 5 No. 2 (2021)
Articles

Evaluation of Free Radical Scavenging activities of Essential Oil Extracted from Valeriana hardwickii

Published 2021-09-01

Abstract

 

Medicinal plants are the rich natural sources of antioxidants, which make them safe and reliable resources for better health benefits. Antioxidants interact with and stabilize free radicals and may prevent some of the later stage damage in the body. Specifically, the role of antioxidants in free radical stabilization is that they donate one of their own electrons to the free radical. In this study, the Valeriana hardwickii were collected from high altitude regions of North Himalaya Garhwal and the antioxidant activities of  Valeriana hardwickii essential oil was investigated by different methods. In DPPH method, the free radical scavenging activities of plant oil is in a range of 28.64 – 87.72%. In FeCl3 method, the lowest reducing activity is shown by Valeriana hardwickii at 0.10 mg/ml and highest by Valeriana hardwickii at 1.00 mg/ml against the standard ascorbic acid. In nitric oxide scavenging method,  IC50 value is 0.25 mg/ml for V. hardwickii (63.76). By comparing the results obtained we can conclude that the plant essential oils showed positive antioxidant properties and their free radical scavenging activities increased with increased concentration.