Antioxidant actions and phenolic and vitamin C contents of common Mauritian exotic fruits

Abstract

Seventeen commonly consumed exotic fruits from Mauritius were analysed for their antioxidant capacity, total phenolics, proanthocyanidins, flavonoids and vitamin C content. Two independent methods were used to evaluate the antioxidant potential of total fruit extracts. The antioxidant activities of the fruits ranged from 1 to 47 µmol Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) g −1 fresh weight and from 11 to 360 µmol ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) g −1 fresh weight. Total phenolics in the fruits ranged from 118 to 5638 µg g −1 fresh weight, proanthocyanidins from 7 to 2561 µg g −1 fresh weight, flavonoids from 21 to 712 µg g −1 fresh weight and vitamin C content from 8 to 1426 µg g −1 fresh weight. There were strong correlations between antioxidant activity (assessed by both TEAC and FRAP) and total phenolics and proanthocyanidins. Flavonoids seemed to contribute less to the antioxidant potential of the fruits, while very poor correlations were observed between ascorbate content and antioxidant activity. The highest antioxidant capacities were observed in red and yellow Psidium cattleianum Sabine 'Chinese guava', sweet and acid Averrhoa carambola L 'starfruit', Syzygium cumini L Skeels 'jamblon' and white Psidium guajava L 'guava'. These fruits were also characterised by high levels of total phenolics. Mauritian exotic fruits are thus a significant source of phenolic antioxidants, which may have potential beneficial effects on health.

Bioactive compounds from several tropical fruits and correlation by multivariate analysis to free radical scavenger activity

“…18 The contents of total phenols in starfruit and of ascorbic acid in bananas reported by these authors were close to those presented in Table 1.…”

“…Gil et al 15 described good correlation between total phenols and free radical scavenger activity, using both DPPH · as well as FRAP assays (r = 0.78 to 0.96 and r = 0.86 to 0.99, respectively), whereas a good correlation of free radical scavenger activity with the levels of ascorbic acid and carotenoids was not found. Luximon-Ramm, Bahorun & Crozier 18 observed the same behavior, with high correlation between total phenols and free radical scavenger activity (r = 0.98 with ABTS ·+ and r = 0.95 through FRAP assays) and low correlation between ascorbic acid and free radical scavenger activity, either with ABTS ·+ (r = 0.07) or FRAP (r = 0.04) methods.…”

“…10 De Rosso & Mercadante, 12 Godoy & Rodriguez-Amaya, 14 Gil et al, 15 Chun et al, 17 Luximon-Ramma et al, 18 Faria et al, 19 Jagadeesh et al, 20 Faria et al 21 …”

Caracterização físico-química de polpas de frutos da Amazônia e sua correlação com a atividade anti-radical livre

“…A polpa de acerola apresentou o maior teor de ácido ascórbico (378,5mg/ 100g) (Tabela 3), valor, no entanto, inferior a alguns dos citados na literatura para o fruto, na faixa de 514,00 a 1.655,00 mg/ 100 g (OLIVEIRA et al, 1999). O teor deste composto pode variar entre diferentes regiões do País, em função de fatores como temperatura, intensidade de luz e conteúdo de umidade, além do processamento da polpa, que pode afetar bastante a concentração de ácido ascórbico (RUFINO et al,…”

Classification and fingerprinting of different berries based on biochemical profiling and antioxidant capacity

“…These compounds are mainly represented by flavonoids, phenolic acids, and tannins, which are known as natural antioxidants (Määttä-Riihinen et al, 2004). Ellagic acid is the predominant phenolic acid in strawberries, raspberries and blackberries (Koponen et al, 2007), and chlorogenic acid in blueberries (Zheng & Wang, 2003).…”