Abstract

STUDIES ON IN VITRO ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY AND TOTAL FLAVONOID CONTENTS OF A CREAM FORMULATION TO CORRELATE ITS ANTI-AGING EFFECT

Shahlla Imam, Iqbal Azhar, Shaista Perveen, Syed Ghazanfar Hussain, and Zafar Alam Mahmood*

Abstract

Several findings revealed that natural antioxidants are capable of providing protection against free radical-related diseases, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Flavonoid, an ubiquitous antioxidant that functions in free radical scavenging, metal ion chelation and enzymes inhibition to suppress the synthesis of free radicals. Antioxidants react through free radical or molecular oxygen quenching, being capable to either delay or inhibit the oxidation processes having prominent utilization to stabilize polymeric products, foodstuffs, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. The aim of present study was to evaluate the total flavonoid content of cream formulation containing fruit extracts viz. Musa accuminata, Psidium guajava and Pyrus communis and to assess the in vitro antioxidant activity at different concentrations to assess its anti-aging property. The total flavonoid content was determined by aluminium chloride colorimetric method. Quercetin was used to make the standard calibration curve. The free radical scavenging activity of cream was determined by in vitro assay model i.e. reducing power assay. Ascorbic acid was used as reference standard. The total flavonoid content of cream formulation was found to be 45.81 ± 8.49 and expressed in terms of standard quercetin equivalent [QE] μg/g. The results revealed that cream exhibited antioxidant activity suggesting the fruit extracts could be utilizes in anti-aging formulation. It was found that antioxidant activity was dose dependent i.e. activity was increased with the increase of concentrations.

Keywords: Flavonoids, In vitro Antioxidant activity, Oxidative stress, Quercetin, Reactive oxygen species (ROS).