Comparative Study of the Antioxidative Activity of Culinary Herbs and Spices, and Hepatoprotective Effects of Three Selected Lamiaceae Plants on Carbon Tetrachloride-Induced Oxidative Stress in Rats

Abstract

Keywords: culinary herbs and spices, ORAC, peppermint, lemon balm, rosemary, hepatoprotective, carbon tetrachloride IntroductionA state of oxidative stress occurs when there is an excess of reactive species such as reactive oxygen and reactive nitrogen in relation to available antioxidants (Asimov, 2007). Oxidative stress is reported to lead to various diseases such as atherosclerosis, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and cancer (Schatz, 2007).Antioxidants synthesized in vivo and taken in from the diet play an important role in defending against reactive species (Reth, 2007).Culinary herbs and spices are sources of dietary antioxidants.These natural materials contain components that differ in properties, e.g., hydrophilic and lipophilic compounds, and function as antioxidants at different reaction rates. Therefore, to evaluate the antioxidative activity of each culinary plant, it is necessary to assay both the hydrophilic and lipophilic fractions.Comparative studies on the antioxidative activities of culinary plants have been reported (Zheng and Wang, 2001;Wu et al., 2004;Ninfali et al., 2005;Shan et al., 2005). However, most of these have focused on hydrophilic compounds, such as polyphenolic compounds and ascorbic acid, and there are few studies on the oxidative activity of both the hydrophilic and lipophilic fractions of plants.The oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) assay is H. Masuda et al. 408 based on the measurement of antioxidant scavenging activity against peroxyl-radical-induced-oxidation initiated by 2,2-azobis(2-amidino-propane) dihydrochloride (AAPH) at physiological pH (Ou et al., 2001). In addition, the ORAC assay can be performed in both an aqueous solution and a lipophilic environment (Huang et al., 2002(Huang et al., , 2005Prior et al., 2003;. Therefore, this assay is considered to be biologically relevant and suitable for both hydrophilic and lipophilic components in natural materials.In vitro assays such as the ORAC do not measure bioavailability, in vivo stability, and reactivity in situ. Therefore, an in vivo study is useful in confirming whether the administration of potent antioxidants evaluated by the initial in vitro study improves oxidative stress levels.Carbon tetrachloride (CCl 4 )-induced liver injury is an oxidative-stress model used for screening hepatoprotective materials (McCay et al., 1984;Recknagel et al., 1989;Plaa, 2000;Weber et al., 2003 (Deshpande et al., 1998;Sotelo-Félix et al., 2002;Botsoglou et al., 2008;Park, 2010;Farhoudi, 2011). However, in general, many of the phytonutrients in foods that possess biological activities are also unpalatable because of bitter tastes and odors (Drewnoski and Gomez-Carneros, 2000;Lesschaeve and Noble, 2005;Soares et al., 2013). For ease of consumption, improving unfavorable tastes, especially bitterness, and removing undesirable odors in healthy foods is desirable.The objectives of this study were to compare the hydrophilic Materials and MethodsPlant materials Sixty-eight herbs and spices from a variety of countries/re...

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