Anti-Oxidative Properties of Astaxanthin and Related Compounds

Abstract

Carotenoids have attracted attention in food and healthcare industries owing to their ability to quench ROS. Here, we present a method for the determination of anti-oxidative property against singlet oxygen (1O2), which plays an important role in skin aging. We quantified the bimolecular 1O2 quenching rate constant, and the amount of 1O2 molecules that can be quenched by a single anti-oxidative molecule before degradation, for five materials. We have defined the anti-oxidative property against 1O2 as the product of these two constants. It was revealed that anti-oxidative properties of astaxanthin and lycopene were the highest among the materials investigated.