Comparison of Hydration and Antioxidant Activity In Three Kinds of Cactuses

Abstract

What cactuses do in prevention of aging, skin moisturizing and cosmetics in addition to being used for dietary and medical purposes? This study focuses on Opuntia microdasys Pfeiff (OMP), Echinopsis ultiplex Pfeiff (EMP) and stem of Hylocereus undatus Britt (SHUB) to obtain raw materials, and to identify and compare differences in efficacy of moisturizing and antioxidating activity between them by testing of efficacy of moisturizing, reducing power, DPPH-free radical scavenging activity and ferrous ion chelating ability. In the hydration moisturizing test, OMP demonstrates exhaustive efficacy of moisturizing. At 100 g/ml concentration, OMP has the reducing power of 0.835±0.08, close to Vitamin C which has 0.817±0.057, showing almost the same reducing effect for OMP and Vitamin C. In the test of DPPH-free radical scavenging activity, comparatively the three kinds of cactuses have strong scavenging ability. With regard to the chelating activity for the three kinds of cactuses, OMP is superior to EMP in chelating ability, and both OMP and EMP are superior to SHUB. Clear differences shown statistically after three groups of comparisons are made. The test verifies the efficacy of moisturizing and antioxidant activity in three kinds of cactuses and provides scientific basis for application and development of cactuses in cosmetics.