Leaves are by-products from mechanical harvesting of wild blueberries. To explore their use as a natural source of antioxidants, blueberry leaves were extracted with ethanol (95%, v/v) and acetone (70%, v/v). The dried crude extracts were then fractionated on a Sephadex LH-20 column. The extracts contained 181-213mg catechin equivalents/g of tannins and their antioxidant activity was similar to that of BHA is a beta-carotene linoleate model system. Over 99% of DPPH was also scavenged by 100 ng of extract in each assay. The antioxidant activity of polyphenolsextracts was evaluated by the p-carotene-linoleate and DPPH radical assays.
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