Abstract

IN VITRO DETERMINATION OF NUTRACEUTICAL, ANTIMICROBIAL AND ANTIOXIDANT POTENTIAL OF DRIED HIBISCUS ROSA-SINENSIS L. FLOWERS

Suvarna Pachpore*, Anuya Rege, Dipti Kolte and Atish Dongarkar

ABSTRACT

Flowers are not only grown for aesthetic purpose, but also have some nutritive and medicinal properties. Hibiscus rosa sinensis has been used in Siddha medicine, a traditional Tamil system from South India, for many centuries. Hibiscus extracts have been used for ages in Ayurveda to cure many ailments. In the present in vitro study, powder of dried hibiscus flowers was subjected to evaluation of vitamins, anthocyanins and phytochemicals which revealed presence of Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B6, Anthocyanin and phytochemicals such as Resins, Saponin, Flavonoids, Anthraquinone to name a few. Moreover, it was found that the dried form of flowers do not decompose for at least 5 months and also do not attract fungus. Hence, these powder form of flowers could be a natural source of Nutraceuticals as well as can find application in Food/Cosmetic Industry. Furthermore, 2 extracts prepared from dried powder of Hibiscus rosa sinensis, viz., Aqueous and Acidified were subjected to determine Antimicrobial potential using MIC, MBC and Agar well diffusion assays. However, none of the extracts showed any Antimicrobial activity. Nevertheless, the aqueous extract of Hibiscus rosa sinensis flower exhibited Antioxidant potential through DPPH assay. The earlier study also reported presence of Anthocyanins and Vitamin C in fresh Hibiscus flowers as well as antioxidant activity of ethanolic extract of flowers. Thus, the flowers of Hibiscus rosa sinensis are good candidates for further investigation as nutraceutical.

Keywords: Hibiscus, Vitamin B, Anthocyanin, Antioxidant effect, Nutraceutical.