Study of Antioxidative Substances from Some Indonesian Plants

Various natural compounds act as antioxidants in protection against lipid peroxidation. Lipid peroxidation yields a variety of decomposition products which have been implicated in not only decreasing the nutritional value of food, but also in developing an off-flavor and toxic substances. As a source of safer and more effective natural antioxidants of natural origin have been widely investigated. Some Indonesian plants have evaluated for their antioxidative activity, and suggested the possible existence of various antioxygenic compounds in them. We attempted to study such antioxygenic compounds with simple method evaluation. As we are interested in the natural product compounds, we examined of several sample such as edible sea-weeds, and some edible fruits. Sea-weed, Eisenia bicyclis, one of the edible brown algae, exhibited the activity. As a traditional food additive consumed by Indonesian, Garcinia parvifolia is used as taste supplement in region West Sumatra, have been studied. Our current studies on the semi-polar fractions shows the activity by the thiocyanate method test. Another sample, Garcinia mangostana, a famous fruit with sweet taste, the part kernel have also evaluated. The acidic fraction of the extract showed antioxidative activity. Some other active components were found in the neutral and BuOH fractions.