Antioxidant & Antimicrobial Activities of Cocos Nucifera Linn. (Arecaceae) Endocarp Extracts

Abstract

Cocos nucifera (CN), commonly known as Coconut tree, is used for its several beneficial health effects as antitumor, anthelmintic, antidotal, antiseptic, aperients, aphrodisiac, astringent, bactericidal, depurative, diuretic, hemostat, pediculicide, refrigerant, stomachic,styptic, suppurative and vermifuge. Our objective was to determine the antioxidant activities, DPPH radical scavenging activities and antimicrobial activities of the ethanolic (cold percolation:RNM-01 & hot percolation:RNM02) extracts, dry distilled extract(RNDS) and aqueous extract(hot percolation: RNA) of endocarp of cocos nucifera from Karnataka region in India. Agar disc diffusion method was used for in vitro antibacterial and antifungal screening. The overall results provide promising baseline information for the potential use of the crude anti-oxidant extracts from CN in the treatment of bacterial and fungal infection as well as for the reduction of other human diseases. As it has been already reported that there is an inverse relationship between dietary-intake of antioxidant-rich foods and the incidence of a number of human diseases, therefore these results are interesting. © 2011 IGJPS. All rights reserved.