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Pure Appl. Chem., 2013, Vol. 85, No. 5, pp. 957-998

http://dx.doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REP-12-07-15

Published online 2013-02-26

ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY DIVISION

Methods of measurement and evaluation of natural antioxidant capacity/activity (IUPAC Technical Report)

Reşat Apak1*, Shela Gorinstein2, Volker Böhm3, Karen M. Schaich4, Mustafa Özyürek1 and Kubilay Güçlü1

1 Department of Chemistry, İstanbul University, Faculty of Engineering, Avcılar, 34320 İstanbul, Turkey
2 The Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School, School of Pharmacy, The Institute for Drug Research, Jerusalem, Israel
3 Institute of Nutrition, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Dornburger Str. 25-29, 07743 Jena, Germany
4 Department of Food Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8520, USA

Abstract: The chemical diversity of natural antioxidants (AOXs) makes it difficult to separate, detect, and quantify individual antioxidants from a complex food/biological matrix. Moreover, the total antioxidant power is often more meaningful to evaluate health beneficial effects because of the cooperative action of individual antioxidant species. Currently, there is no single antioxidant assay for food labeling because of the lack of standard quantification methods. Antioxidant assays may be broadly classified as the electron transfer (ET)- and hydrogen atom transfer (HAT)-based assays. The results obtained are hardly comparable because of the different mechanisms, redox potentials, pH and solvent dependencies, etc. of various assays. This project will aid the identification and quantification of properties and mutual effects of antioxidants, bring a more rational basis to the classification of antioxidant assays with their constraints and challenges, and make the results more comparable and understandable. In this regard, the task group members convey their own experiences in various methods of antioxidants measurement.