Antioxidant, Free Radical Scavenging and Metal Chelating Characteristics of Propolis

This study was undertaken to determine the reducing characteristics, metal chelating capability, anti-lipid peroxidative and antiradical properties of propolis compared to two widely used artificial antioxidants, Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA) and Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT). The water and ethanol extracts of propolis showed significantly a different degree of metal chelating, radical scavenging activity and reducing power. In general, ethanol extracts of propolis showed higher activity regarding these parameters. Synthetic antioxidants showed better activities than both propolis extracts for antioxidant properties, utilizing a -carotene bleaching method. At higher concentrations, the reducing power of ethanol extract of propolis was similar to that of artificial antioxidants. The metal chelating activity of both water and ethanol extracts of propolis was comparable to that of EDTA and significantly higher than both BHA and BHT.