Antidiabetic and Antioxidant Properties of Bilberry ( Vaccinium myrtillus Linn.) Fruit and Their Chemical Composition

Abstract

Bilberry [ Vaccinium myrtillus Linn. (Ericaceae)] fruit (VMF) has been traditional ly used for treatment of bladder stones, biliary disor ders, scurvy, coughs, and lung tuberculosis. VMF may have some pharmaceutical prop erties owing to these uses, but in vivo and in vitro studies are limited for clarification of medicinal activity and its antidiabetic and antioxidant properties are not inv estigated in detail. Anti-amylase, anti- glucosidase, and antioxidant activities of methanol (ME), ethanol (EE), acetone (AE), and water (WE) extracts of VMF were investigated. In ad dition, some chemical compositions were determined by using spectrophotometric methods . Antidiabetic and antioxidant activities of extracts were studied by using differ ent tests such as α -amylase and α - glucosidase inhibitory, total antioxidant, DPPH sca venging activities according to in vitro methods at different concentrations (10-250 μ g mL -1 ). Compared with the standards, ME, WE, and EE showed strong total antioxidant activiti es with IC 50 ( μ g/mL) values of 24.46±0.34, 25.24±0.78, and 27.48±0.60, respectivel y. At the same time, ME (IC 50 61.38±1.40 μ g mL -1 ) and EE (IC 50 65.52±1.19 μ g mL -1 ) demonstrated very effective inhibitory activity against α -amylase and moderate inhibitory activity against α - glucosidase. All extracts also showed high reducing power, metal chelating activity, superoxide anion, DPPH radical, and H 2 O 2 scavenging activities. Important relationships were found between biological activity and chemical composition by statistical analyses. The VMF can be used as an antidiabetic and antioxid ant source in medicinal and pharmaceutical areas due to its chemical compositio n. Anthocyanin contents may influence the anti-amylase inhibition activity more than phenolic and flavonoid contents. Keywords: Alpha-amylase, Anthocyanin, Glucosidase inhibition , Flavonoid, Phenol.