The antioxidant and antimutagenic activities of Ankaferd blood stopper,a natural hemostatic agent used in dentistry.

BACKGROUND/AIM This study investigated the antioxidant and antimutagenic properties of Ankaferd blood stopper (ABS), a plant-based topical hemostatic agent used in Turkey to treat external hemorrhages and bleeding during dental surgery. While previous studies have examined the antimicrobial, antiinflammatory, and anticarcinogenic properties of ABS, to our knowledge, this is the first study to report on the antioxidant and antimutagenic activities of this drug. MATERIALS AND METHODS Antioxidant activity was evaluated using DPPH radical-scavenging and β-carotene-linoleic acid tests. Antimutagenic activity was assessed using the Ames Salmonella/microsome mutagenicity test with the bacterial mutant strains Salmonella typhimurium TA98 and TA100. RESULTS Although ABS demonstrated no free-radical-scavenging activity in DPPH assays at the tested concentrations, β-carotene-linoleic acid testing found ABS to have a total antioxidant activity rate of 47.06 ± 4.41%. Antimutagenic effects were observed on TA100 at plate concentrations of 5%, 0.5%, and 0.05%, and on TA98 only at a plate concentration of 5%. CONCLUSION ABS was shown to possess antioxidant and antimutagenic properties that could be of potential value in the fields of medicine and dentistry.