In-Vitro Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Activity of Chamomile Flower

Abstract

Chamomile flower, botanically identified as Matricaria chamomilla L. or Matricaria recutita L., is one of the most widely used medicinal flowers in traditional and modern herbal medicine. The flower heads contain pharmacologically relevant groups of constituents such as flavonoids, sesquiterpenes, terpenoids, coumarins, phenolic acids and mucilage, among which apigenin, luteolin, quercetin derivatives, alpha-bisabolol, bisabolol oxides, matricine and chamazulene are considered particularly important for anti-inflammatory and antioxidant responses. The findings demonstrate that chamomile flower extract shows concentration-dependent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity. In the dataset presented in this thesis, DPPH radical scavenging increased from 24.8% at 50 microgram/mL to 81.9% at 800 microgram/mL, while ABTS scavenging rose from 27.9% to 84.1% across the same concentration range. In the anti-inflammatory assays, inhibition of albumin denaturation increased from 21.4% to 75.8%, and membrane stabilization improved from 25.1% to 79.3%. Paired t-testing showed statistically significant differences between chamomile extract and standards across all assays, indicating that although the extract was less potent than standards, it retained meaningful bioactivity suitable for phytopharmaceutical investigation. A chi-square comparison of response categories showed a similar overall distribution of moderate to high activity across assays.