The use of Ficus species as food or pharmacological agents to improve human health has a history of about ten thousand years. Xishuangbanna in southwest China, bordered with Laos and Myanmar, is one of the biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. The local ethnic groups have traditionally used young leaves of many Ficus species as vegetables.

Prof. Hu Huabin and his research team of XTBG have been keeping on ethnic botanical studies for many years. Over the past few years, they chose seven Ficus species as their study objects and have evaluated the antioxidant effects of the edible young leaves for the first time.

The young leaves of seven Ficus species including F. virens var. sublanceolata, F. auriculata, F. vasculosa, F. callosa, F. virens var. verins, F. racemosa and F. oligodon are traditionally consumed by local people in Xishuangbanna.

The researchers studied the dry young leaves for their total phenolic and flavonoid contents. The 90% ethanolic extracts of the young leaves were creened for potential antioxidant capacity by employing different in vitro assays including ABTS•+ and DPPH• radical scavenging capacities, ferric reducing power and lipid peroxidation inhibition properties.

The research results concluded that the edible young leaves of the seven Ficus species possess abundant antioxidants at various concentrations, and the ethanol extracts of F. virens var. sublanceolata and F. auriculata showed considerable high antioxidant potential compared with other species tested.

The research entitled “Preliminary assessment of antioxidant activity of young edible leaves of seven Ficus species in the ethnic diet in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China” has been published online in Food Chemistry.  

doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2011.03.113