[Antioxidative activity studies on the meaning of same original of herbal drug and food].

The antioxidative activity of aqueous extracts of 6 kinds of common food, Ziziphus jujuba, Crataegus pinnatifida, fresh Allium sativum, fresh Zingiper efficinale, Citrus tangerina and green tea, which are also used as traditional herbal drugs, was studied. The result indicated that all these extracts can scavenge (O2) free radical, inhibit lipid peroxidation of mice liver homogenate (in vivo and in vitro), decrease hyaluronic acid depolymerization induced by (O2), and inhibit the adenosine deaminase activity of mice liver homogenate (in vivo). These actions are very similar to the actions of those traditional Chinese tonic prescriptions and their individual herbal drugs studied before.