Comparative Studies on Phytochemical Screening and in Vitro Antioxidant Activities of Aqueous Extracts of Anacardium Occidentale Leaves and Nuts

Phytochemicals are plant-derived chemicals, which are beneficial to human health and disease. They are naturally occurring in the medicinal plants, vegetables, leaves and roots that have defense mechanism and protect from various diseases as well inhibit, or delay the oxidation of other molecules by inhibiting the initiation or propagation of oxidizing chain reaction. Cashew (Anacardium occidentale) is one of the most important nut-bearing trees. Therefore comparative studies on the phytochemical screening and in vitro antioxidant activities on aqueous extracts of leaves and nuts of Anacardium occidentale were investigated to assess their antioxidant properties in different antioxidant property determination assays. Aqueous extracts of the Anacardium occidentale leaves and nuts revealed the presence of resin, flavonoids, phenols, carbohydrates, alkaloids and terpenoids. In addition, the aqueous leaf extract of the plant contained tannins, saponins, phlobatanins and steroids. The IC50 (µg/ml) values of the leaves’ extract were 36.77 ± 1.11, 1.71 ± 0.10, 1.01 ± 0.07, 0.11 ± 0.002 and 0.99 ±0.22 for total antioxidant capacity (AAE), ferric reducing antioxidant activity (AAE), diphenyl picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) assay, nitric oxide (NO) scavenging activity and metal chelating activity respectively. On the other hand, the IC50 (µg/ml) values of the nuts’ extract were 34.85 ± 0.27, 1.37 ± 0.02, 4.65 ± 0.19, 8.65 ± 0.09 and 3.54 ±0.05 for total antioxidant capacity (AAE), ferric reducing antioxidant activity (AAE), diphenyl picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) assay, nitric oxide (NO) scavenging activity and metal chelating activity respectively. Consequently, even though both extracts exhibited remarkable in vitro antioxidant properties, the leaf extract seemed to have better performance with respect to the parameters investigated.