CIMO/Escola Superior Agrária, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, Apartado 1172, 5301-855 Bragança, Portugal.
Phytother Res. 2011 Apr;25(4):484-92. doi: 10.1002/ptr.3284. Epub 2010 Aug 24.
Herbal infusions and decoctions in water are some of the most commonly consumed beverages in the world. Although water is not a good solvent for many of the active components in herbs, liquid preparations are rich in several bioactive compounds. Most of them have powerful antioxidant activity and have been related to medicinal herbs' properties. Herein, decoctions and infusions in water of lemon-verbena (Aloysia citrodora) aerial parts and leaves, fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium) and spearmint (Mentha spicata) aerial parts with different periods of storage (0, 30, 60 and 120 days), were prepared. The effects of the method of preparation and storage period on their antioxidant properties were analysed. For all the analysed species, infusions gave better results than the corresponding decoctions. Spearmint infusions showed the highest antioxidant properties, at all the storage periods, probably due to the highest levels and synergy between phenolics, flavonoids and ascorbic acid found in this sample. Linear discriminant analysis confirmed that the length of storage period has a significant influence on the antioxidant activity and antioxidant content. Flavonoids and reducing sugars proved to be the parameters that most highly contributed to cluster individual groups according to different periods of storage.
草药的水浸液和汤剂是世界上最常饮用的饮料之一。虽然水不是草药中许多活性成分的良好溶剂，但液体制剂富含多种生物活性化合物。其中大多数具有强大的抗氧化活性，并与草药的特性有关。在此，制备了柠檬香蜂草（Aloysia citrodora）地上部分和叶、茴香（Foeniculum vulgare）、薄荷（Mentha pulegium）和绿薄荷（Mentha spicata）的水浸液和汤剂，并研究了不同储存期（0、30、60 和 120 天）对其抗氧化特性的影响。对于所有分析的物种，浸液的抗氧化性能均优于相应的汤剂。在所有储存期内，绿薄荷浸液都表现出最高的抗氧化性能，这可能是由于该样品中发现的酚类、类黄酮和抗坏血酸含量最高且具有协同作用。线性判别分析证实，储存期的长短对抗氧化活性和抗氧化含量有显著影响。类黄酮和还原糖被证明是根据不同储存期将个体组聚类的最重要参数。
