In-vitro Antioxidant activity of ‘Aswathy Chooranam’- a Siddha Drug

Siddha medicine is one among World’s oldest medical systems. It originated in Southern Part of Tamilnadu and Kerala more than 3,000 years ago. It is one of the States’ official Traditional health care systems. Siddha medicine serves both Therapeutic and Prophylatic concepts and hence Holistic in nature. Kaya karpam, a special branch of this medical system is a science of rejuvenation, longevity, and spiritual wellbeing. Concept of Kaya Karpam was breifly explained by saint Thirumoolar in his text Thirumanthiram [1]. The word Kaya & Karpam denotes the meaning of Prevention of body from diseases. Nowadays, this can be correlated with the Anti-Oxidant concept. It deals with the Prevention of Narai (Whitening of hairs), Thirai (shrinkening of Skin), Moopu (aging) and Saakadu (Death) [2]. Kaya kalpa drugs have proven scientific evidences to prevent and manage the Non communicable diseases like Diabetes mellitus, Obesity and also Chronic deliberating diseases like cancer etc. In that way, our test drug ‘Aswathy Chooranam’ also comes under the division ‘Kaya karpam’. It is a poly herbal formulation containing about eleven herbal Ingredients indicated for the prevention of Non communicable diseases [3]. So the Authors’ of this paper decided to evaluate the In vitro Anti-oxidant activity of the test drug through DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl), Nitric Oxide Scavenging, Total Antioxidant activities and the results show significant free radical scavenging properties.