Access Type

Open Access Thesis

Date of Award

January 2014

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Department

Nutrition and Food Science

First Advisor

Kevin Zhou

Abstract

For ages, Chinese herbs, such as Dendrobium Officinale (DO), have been used in Asian regions for treating various illnesses due to the high medicinal value. In this study, the DO plant Acetone and Ethanolic extracts possibly containing antioxidants were tested using different methodologies for comparison and determination of specific antioxidant capacity. The total phenolic content assay expressed as Gallic Acid Equivalent showed 9.43±;0.23 mg GAE /g of extract. Further analysis using DPPH· assay indicated that antioxidants presented in the sample were able to significantly scavenge 37% and 44% radicals at the concentrations of 25mg/ml and 50mg/mL respectively, after a period of 2 hours (p<0.05). ORAC and ABTS assays showed consistent radical scavenging results that Ethanol extracted DO sample had significantly higher AOC than the Acetone fraction. In addition, α-glucosidase assay was included to test efficacy in postprandial hyperglycemic condition, where the result indicated a significantly higher inhibitory effect by DO Acetone fraction compare to Ethanol fraction, 11~18% vs. 5.4% (p<0.05). Although DO did not contain significantly high level of phenolic antioxidants, additional researches on different purified fractions such as polysaccharide compounds including evaluations of possible synergistic effects would be part of prospective experiments to show possible improvement on antioxidant capacity.

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