Standardization And Invitro Antioxidant Activity Of Olax Scandens

Abstract

During recent days human beings are prone to various diseases and are requiring serious hospitalization and treatment. The majority of treatment employs high tech equipment or synthetic drugs which have notable side effects and adverse effects. To overcome these effects, use of herbal medicines or those drugs derived from natural origin is suggested and preferred. But the problem with natural drugs is the ambiguity in the potency of action repetitiveness of the results which might be due to various factors starting from collection to storage and shipping. These changes in the crude drug due to the environmental and other factors reduce the reliability on herbal drugs for effective treatment of disease inspite of their safer use. So standardization of crude drugs plays a key role in ensuring the quality and efficacy of the drug. So in the present study Olxscandens plant had been standardized in terms of its microscopy characters, physicochemical constants, phytochemical analysis and invitro antioxidant activity was investigated by taking quercetin as standard. Results suggested the bark of the plant can be extracted with highest yield using ethanol as solvent. Microscopy studies revealed the presence of cork, phelloderm, phloem fibres, xylem tissue, and calcium oxalate crystals. Heavy metal contents are under acceptable limits. Phytochemical evaluation suggested the crude drug contains phenols, flavonoids, glycosides, alkaloids etc. Total phenol content was determined and the ethanol extract contained 172mg of quercetin equivalents of total phenols. Invitro antioxidant activity proved that the ethanol extract was comparatively similar in inhibiting the free radicals generated due to superoxides, hydroxyl and peroxidation.