Metabolic and antioxidant profiles of herbal infusions and decoctions Charalambos Fotakis a , Diamantina Tsigrimani a,b , Thalia Tsiaka a,b , Dimitra Z. Lantzouraki a , Irini F. Strati c , Constantinos Makris a,b , Dimitra Tagkouli a,b , Charalampos Proestos b , Vassilia J. Sinanoglou c,⇑ , Panagiotis Zoumpoulakis a,⇑ a Institute of Biology, Medicinal Chemistry & Biotechnology, National Hellenic Research Foundation, 48, Vas. Constantinou Ave., 11635 Athens, Greece b Department of Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens 15771, Greece c Instrumental Food Analysis Laboratory, Department of Food Technology, Technological Educational Institution of Athens, Ag. Spyridonos Street, Aigaleo, GR-12210 Athens, Greece article info Article history: Received 21 January 2016 Received in revised form 16 May 2016 Accepted 18 May 2016 Available online 19 May 2016 Keywords: Herbal preparations Infusions Decoctions Antioxidant profile NMR metabolomics abstract This study implements NMR metabolomics and spectrophotometric studies (Folin–Ciocalteu, FRAP, ABTS) to infusions and decoctions of ten plant species in order to assess and compare the metabolic and antiox- idant profiles for each botanical family. Multivariate and univariate data analyses highlighted the differ- ences among the samples and pinpointed specific classes of compounds for each plant species as well as infusions and decoctions. The identified phenolic compounds by NMR, as well as the antioxidant profile, framed a trend of increased values in infusions compared to the decoctions. Moreover, the infusion pro- cedure positively affected the extractability of the phenolic compounds compared to decoctions. The highest total phenolic content was found in Mentha spicata, while the lowest in Matricaria chamomilla preparations, irrespective of the preparation method. The preparation time for the decoctions was exam- ined showing that the 15 min preparations were generally found richer in phenolics and of higher antiox- idant capacity. Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction ‘‘Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food", in line with this quote of Hippocrates, today in Greece the culinary and medicinal uses of herbal species are inextricably intertwined. Medicinal plants used in folk medicine are studied up-to-date (Hoareau & DaSilva, 1999) and utilized for pharmaceu- tical, food and nutraceutical preparations. Infusions or decoctions are the most consumed drinkable forms of herbs. Infusion consti- tutes the process of extracting constituents from a plant material in a solvent such as water, edible oil or alcohol, by allowing the material to remain suspended in the solvent over time (Visht and Chaturvedi, 2012). The process of decoction, involves boiling the plant material allowing the extraction of more substances but also allows more aromas to escape into the air. Decoction tends to be used when the medicinal properties or biological activity of the plant are more important than the flavor or aroma (Visht and Chaturvedi, 2012). The recognition of herbal beverages, either infusions or decoc- tions as functional drinks might be related with the plant species from which they are prepared along with formulation or prepara- tion methods (Henning et al., 2004; Milašiene ˙ et al., 2007). Partic- ularly, the herbal species have been credited with a large list of health-benefit effects, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, analgesic, neuroprotective and anticarcinogenic. These properties have been associated to the plant’s polyphenolic composition and in turn to the ability of phenolic compounds to act as reducing agents, hydrogen donators and singlet oxygen quenchers (Škrovánková, Mišurcová, & Machu ˚ , 2012). Polyphenols are secondary metabolites affected by plant variety, environmental conditions, seasonal conditions and geographical origin. In light of this, a diverse polyphenolic fingerprint characterizes each plant and evidently its antioxidant activity (El-Hawary, Yousif, Motaal, & Abd-Hameed, 2012; Hernandez, Falé, Araújo, & Serralheiro, 2010; Kortesniemi, Sinkkonen, Yang, & Kallio, 2014; Martins et al., 2014; Michel, Destandau, Le Floch, Lucchesi, & Elfakir, 2012; Pereira & Cardoso, 2013; Roby, Sarhan, Selim, & Khalel, 2013a; Roby, Sarhan, Selim, & Khalel, 2013b; Stagos et al., 2012; Stanisavljevic ´, Stojic ˇevic ´, Velic ˇkovic ´ , Veljkovic ´, & Lazic ´, 2009). NMR metabolomics has proven an invaluable tool in plant science since it is a robust, quick, reproducible, non-destructive and relatively easy to use analytical platform that does not require laborious sample preparation and can simultaneously identify diverse groups of secondary metabolites as well as abundant http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2016.05.124 0308-8146/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: vsina@teiath.gr (V.J. Sinanoglou), pzoump@eie.gr (P. Zoumpoulakis). Food Chemistry 211 (2016) 963–971 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Chemistry journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodchem