Antioxidant activity of organic and aqueous leaf extracts of Cassia occidentalis L. in relation to their phenolic content

In this study, the antioxidant potency of sequential organic and aqueous leaf extracts of Cassia occidentalis was investigated, employing various established in vitro systems such as nitric oxide scavenging (NOS) activity, β-carotene-linoleic acid model system, hydroxyl radical scavenging (HRS) activity, reducing power, metal chelating activity (MCA) and superoxide radical scavenging (SRS) activity. The aqueous extract of the leaves of C. occidentalis was found to be most effective against free radicals, followed by the methanolic, chloroform, petroleum ether and benzene extracts, respectively. A preliminary study of qualitative and quantitative estimations of phenolics was performed, and the results were correlated with different antioxidant tests. A positive and significant (p?