CAPACITY OF EXTRACTS OF SWEET CHESTNUT CONCERNING TO REMOVE LIPID PEROXIDATION

Permanent attention of researchers has been focused on the use of natural antioxidants to inhibit lipid peroxidation, or to protect the damage provoked by free radicals. Extracts of sweet chestnut, Lovran’s Marrone cultivar and grafted Italian ″Marrone″ cultivar obtained in two years (2006. and 2007.), were investigated for their capacity to remove lipid peroxidation in liposomes exposed to hydroxyl radical, and for their total phenolics and flavonoids content. Selected tissues of sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) fruit, leaf, catkin, spiny burs, young and old bark of chestnut tree have been extracted under the same conditions using 50% ethanol and afterwards dry extracts of examined samples have been gained. All extracts, excluding those with low content of both, total phenolics and flavonoids, showed the ability to protect liposomes from lipid peroxidation. We find practical importance of results in the fact that extract of spiny burs could potentially have beneficial effects in diet of hypertensive patients.