Antioxidative Activities of Korean Medicinal Plants

Abstract

One hundred sixty species among Korean medicinal plants were tested on their antioxidative potentials. Antioxidants are useful materials which could be expected into development as food preservatives, health foods, cosmetics and drugs. Korean peninsula have many potential in antioxidant source which includes various medicinal herbs. It grounded on the fact that Korean medicinal plants have been used as folk therapy for long time and still do in oriental medicine. From the study, effective free radical scavengers compared with were Geranium sibiricum, Geum japonicum, Geranium nepalense subsp. thunbergii and Paulownia coreana which showed , respectively, Acer mono and 38 plants showed strong potential in inhibition rate on linoleic acid oxidation (above 90%). In conclusion, we expect that the selected medicinal plants must be more studied as antioxidant and then developed as many industrial materials.