ESTIMATION OF PHYTOCHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND ANTIOXIDANT PROPERTY OF SECONDARY METABOLITES OF A MEMORY ENHANCING MEDICINAL HERB BACCOPA MONNIERI OF EAST KOLKATA WETLAND

Herbal medicine nowadays offers several options to modify the progress and symptoms of medicines. There has been a new trend in the preparation and marketing of drugs based on medicinal plants and their scientific and commercial significance. These plant-derived products are carefully standardized and their efficacy and safety for a specific application have been demonstrated. The objective of this work is to prepare different crude extracts from the leaves of a medicinal plant, Bacopa monnieri through the maceration method and determine their total phenolics, flavonoids and other components and also the antioxidant activity by established methods. The Bacopa monnieri leaves were collected from East Kolkata Wetland, India. The different crude extracts were prepared by using different solvents of different polarities. The total phenolic contents were determined by using the UV visible spectroscopy method. The content of the total phenolic of different leaves crude extracts was in the range of 17.43 mg/g-46.24 mg/g of dry crude extracts. The antioxidant activity was assessed by conventional a-diphenyl-b-s-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) methods. The highest antioxidant activity was found in the chloroform extract of the plant selected. Also, a significant correlation between phenol and glycoside content was observed. The crude extracts of Brahmi showed significant antioxidant activity; thus, these extracts could be used as natural antioxidants for the preparation of medicines to treat different diseases.