Pine needle oil and Korean medicinal herbs (KMH) are known as effective therapeutic agents on various blood vessel disease. We have already reported the ameliorative effect of complex of pine needle oil and Korean medicinal herbs against hyperlipidemia. B

To investigate the functional properties and the antioxidant effect of pine needle(Pinus densiflora), the pine needle extract was obtained with methanol and its functionality was measured by spectrophotometric method, and the antioxidant experiment on soybean oil was carried out by the active oxygen method. The extraction yield of pine needle with 99% methanol was about 19%, the total flavonoid content of the pine needle-methanol extract was 11.32 mg/g on dry basis and the superoxide dismutase-like activity was 94.3%. The nitrite scavenging ability of the extract was pH dependent with the values of 77.44% at pH 1.2, 48.45% at pH 3.0 and 11.04% at pH 6.0, respectively. The peroxide value was 92.6 meq/kg at 5% dosage, 138.4 meq/kg at 2% dosage of the extract on 8 oxidation days. The period of the peroxide value to be 100 mg/kg was 4.9, 6.3 and 8.5 days at control, 2% and 5% dosage of extract, respectively. And the relative antioxidant effectiveness of the extract was 27.9% and 72.3% increase at 2% and 5% dosage, respectively, compared to control. The thiobarbituric acid value showed few differences within 4 oxidation days, but with the dosage of the extract it fairly decreased with considerable antioxidant effect to control above 4 days.

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of Pine needle extract on lipid oxidation and free radical reaction in iron sources reacted with active oxygen species. The results were summarized as follow; The pine needle extracts didn`t show a distinct effect on reduction of lipid oxidation if the iron ion didn`t exist in oil emulsion. The pine needle extracts played role as a strong chelating agents to bind iron ion if Ferrous iron(Fe\ulcorner) exist in oil emulsion. Ferric iron(Fe) was lower effect than Ferrous iron(Fe) on free radical reaction in oil emulsion. And also, the Fe\ulcorner reacted with pine needle extract did not show distinct effect on free radical reaction, compared to Fe\ulcorner reacted with pine needle extract. And also, Pine needle extracts reacted with H\ulcornerO\ulcorner were tended to show a low oxygen scavenging ability in case of H\ulcornerO\ulcorner only was existed, compared to those of H\ulcornerO\ulcorner + Fe\ulcorner complex. Pine needle extracts were the most powerful Fe\ulcorner binding agents, compared to other strong synthetic antioxidants such as EDTA and DTPA.