RESEARCH ARTICLE Assessment of phytochem n

Nowadays, plants provide raw materials for new sources of drugs and pharmaceutical products. A wide variety of naturally occurring constituents such as polyphenolics, terpenoids and pro-vitamins have received much atten-tion as alternative therapeutic agents to fight against various oxidative stress induced diseases [1-3]. Numer-ous natural antioxidants from medicinal plants have been isolated and characterized. In particular, phenolic compounds are suggested to exert therapeutic activities because of their anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory properties. The polyphenolic compounds impart mul-tiple antioxidant properties such as scavenging of free radicals, reducing abilities or act as metal chelators. Fur-thermore, anti-microbial, anti-thrombotic and vasodila-tor properties of phytochemicals have increased the interest as alternative and complementary medicines [4]. The ability of cells to detoxify the reactive intermediates that are produced as a result of excessive metabolism is * Correspondence