Atividade antioxidante de sementes de pitaia

Abstract

The study involving foods rich in nutritional and antioxidant properties is increasingly popular. Fighting disease and slowing cell aging is a major challenge worldwide. This is all related to the practice of healthy living and lowering the risk of illness. This fact becomes viable in the region, with Brazil as the third largest fruit producer in the world market. Fruits in general are foods rich in vitamins and capable of slowing cell aging through antioxidants. This property makes the fruits responsible for accompanying most human meals. Through research in the area, this work aims to evaluate the three species of pitaya by standardized spectrophotometric methods such as DDPH, ABTS, phenolic compounds and flavonoids for the determination of antioxidant activity through a set of methods to demonstrate the potential fruit antioxidant. For the tests performed, a sample in ethanolic extract was used, where the same presentation best result for the antioxidant activity index equal to 0.0021 for the species Hylocereus undatus by the DPPH method and through the ABTS method presented a value of 17.79 μmol of Trolox / g sample for a species Hylocereus megalanthus. The results have the parallel objective to raise awareness and inform about the importance in the consumption of fruits of different types and also in a balanced diet.