Antioxidant Activity of the Brown Macroalgae Fucus spiralis Linnaeus Harvested from the West Coast of Ireland

The extraction and isolation of natural antioxidants with potential in reducing the incidences of oxidative stress in the body and their potential inclusion into functional foods is a major topic of research at present. In this study, the aim was to investigate food-friendly Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE ) samples and a Viscozyme hydrolysate of the brown macroalga Fucus spiralis Linnaeus for total phenolic content and antioxidant activities. Furthermore, the effect of ultra-filtration steps on the total phenolic content and antioxidant activities of the Fucus spiralis hydrolysate were also evaluated.ethanolic-aqueous and methanolic-aqueous ASE extracts displayed high phenolic contents of 37.03±3.01 and 39.04±5.72 μg phloroglucinol equivalents mg/sample, respectively. Both the Fucus spiralis Viscozyme hydrolysate and ASE extracts displayed in vitro antioxidant activities. Our findings suggest that food-friendly extracts of Fucus spiralis show potential as alternative sources of antioxidants.