Antioxidant capacity of Venezuelan honey in wistar rat homogenates

ABSTRACT The antioxidant effect of several polyphenolic compounds is well known. However, little is known about the antioxidant capacity of Venezuelan honey, which has a high content of polyphenolic compounds. In this work, the antioxi-dant capacity of a genuine honey produced in Mérida, Venezuela was studied using the ferrous iron oxidation with xylenol orange method, the thiobarbituric acid method, and the determination of antioxidant activity. We found that this honey has the capacity to decrease significantly the concentration of lipid hydroperoxides and malondialdehyde, produced during the lipid peroxidation process, in a comparable way with other widely studied antioxidants such as melatonin and vitamin E. It was found that the antioxidant activity in the 50 % honey dilution, the highest concentration we tested, was equivalent to a concentration of uric acid of 0.62 mM. KEY WORDS: • antioxidant activity • Fenton’s reagent • honey • lipid hydroperoxides • malondialdehyd