Review on indigenous fruits of Indian origin with antioxidant activity

Abstract

As plants produce significant amount of antioxidants to prevent the oxidative stress caused by photons and oxygen, they represent a potential source of new compounds with antioxidant activity. Traditional herbal medicines form an important part of the health care system of India. Ayurveda, supposed to be the oldest medical system in the world, provides potential leads to find active and therapeutically useful compounds from plants. Considering the growing interest in assessing the antioxidant capacity of herbal medicine in this review we discuss about the rarely reviewed 10 indigenous fruits of Indian origin reported to have antioxidant properties. Some of the fruits reviewed are part of multi-herbal preparations while others are used singly. Certain fruits like Syzygium cumini, Ziziphus mauritiana, Emblica officinalis, indicating that these fruits could be source of dietary antioxidant supplies, which is another emerging area of research.