Optical antioxidant sensing process

An optical antioxidant sensing process for measuring the free radical scavenging efficiency of a nutritional formulation when encountering reactive oxygen radical species in a medium comprising the steps of:

• introducing an organic dye reagent that reacts with oxygen radicals to said medium to chemically tag said oxygen radicals in said medium;
• introducing an oxygen catalyst promoter to said medium to increase oxidative activity;
• detecting and measuring the population of said tagged oxygen radicals using an optical fiber sensor;
• introducing a nutritional formulation with antioxidant properties to said medium;
• detecting and measuring the relative population of said tagged oxygen radicals in said medium using said optical fiber sensor;
• calculating the free radical scavenging efficiency of said nutritional formulation using said oxygen radical population measurements;
• and
• assaying the free radical scavenging effectiveness of the nutritional formulation.

An optical antioxidant sensing process to measure the free radical scavenging efficiency of nutritional formulations comprising:

• forming a control group including a medium that contains tagged fluorescent oxygen radicals;
• incubating a first portion of said control group with a first sample of a nutritional formulation having antioxidant properties;
• incubating a second portion of said control group with a second sample of said nutritional formulation having antioxidant properties in isolated form;
• measuring the free radical scavenging activity of said first sample in said first portion of said control group using an optical fiber sensor;
• measuring the free radical scavenging activity of said second sample in said second portion of said control group using said optical fiber sensor;
• and
• assaying the antioxidant capacity of said first and said second samples.

A process for measuring antioxidant activity in an in-vitro model mimicking the gastrointestinal tract comprising the steps of:

• introducing a functional food-based antioxidant sample to a first vessel containing ingredients that mimic the environment in a stomach segment of said gastrointestinal tract;
• pumping the resultant solution into a second vessel containing ingredients that mimic the environment in a small intestine segment of said gastrointestinal tract;
• introducing a pancreatic fluid solution to said second vessel to further mimic the environment of said small intestine segment;
• introducing a bile salt solution to said second vessel to further mimic the environment in said small intestine segment;
• pumping the resultant solution into a third vessel containing ingredients that mimic the environment in a large intestine segment of said gastrointestinal tract;
• and
• assaying solutions from said vessels using the optical antioxidant sampling process of the invention to determine the solution's relative intracellular effects on free radicals in said gastrointestinal tract.