6th Annual Judith Ramaley Celebration of Research and Creative Scholarship
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Poster #36 Acai Extract Phenolic Content and Antioxidant Capacity Amy Finn Faculty Mentor: Ted Wilson Acai is a dark blue tropical berry that is rich in phenolics and has antioxidant properties, with potential human health benefits. Acai is often consumed in the form of pill supplements that presumably reflect the properties of the original fruit. This study compared the phenolic content and antioxidant activity of five different commercially available products: Acai RX, Watts Power, Fruitrients X, NOW, and Solaray. Extract solutions were prepared by dissolving 200 mg of each pill in water, phenolic concentration was expressed as Gallic acid equivalents (GAE) at 34.5 ± 4.06, 52.26 ± 0.70, 70.2 ± 0.95, 938 ± 0.80, and 30.0 ± 1.04 mg GAE/ml respectively. Ability of 1:100 dilutions of extracts to inhibit Cu++- mediated oxidation of low density lipoprotein was evaluated with a TBARS assay after a 90 min incubation. TBARS in the absence of acai was 0.05 ± 0.01, and TBARS in the presence of acai (1:10) was 0.29 ± 0.01, 0.40 ± 0.01, 0.48 ± 0.01, 0.03 ± 0.01, and 0.21 ± 0.01 ng MDA/ml respectively. LDL oxidized in the absence of acai had a 33.46 minute lag-time (A234 nm), lag-times were 77-, 77-, 65-, 180- and 74.35-minutes, in the presence of a 1:10 dilution of these acai extracts respectively. R-squared values for lag-time verse TBARS, lag-time verse GAE, and TBARS vs. GAE and were 0.91, 0.75 and 0.95 respectively. The potential health benefits of commercially available acai supplements are probably related to the phenolic content. |
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