Total phenolics, anthocyanins, antioxidant and pro-oxidant activity of some red fruits teas

Abstract

Fruits represent one of the main dietary sources of bioactive compounds. Due to their remarkable health benefits, many functional foods of fruit origin, including fruit teas, are present on the market and there is an increased interest regarding the investigation of their nutritional parameters and quality. The aims of our study were: 1) to determine the total phenolic content (TPC), total anthocyanins content (TAC), antioxidant activity (AA), the scavenging capacity (IC50), the pro-oxidant activity (Pro-ox) and Pro-Antidex of 12 commercially available red fruit teas, 2) to classify the analysed teas and 3) to evaluate the similarities between samples. The TPC was between 12.5 and 29.3 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/g tea, the TAC varied between 2.6 and 5.6mg cyanidin-3-glucoside (Cy-3-glu)/g tea and AA was in the range of 10.9-19.1 mg ascorbic acid equivalents (AAE)/g tea. The Pro-ox activity varied between 3.9 and 10.0 mg/mL tea extract and Pro-Antidex was between 3.3 and 7.3.

Keywords

• red fruits teas
• phenolic compounds
• anthocyanins
• antioxidant activity
• pro-oxidant activity
• Pro-Antidex