Comparative Study of Vitamin C Contents in Fruits and Medicinal Plants

Vitamin c or ascorbic acid, a very useful constituent for the redox mechanism, is used in medicine and food to prevent oxidation. a uv-spectrophotometric method was developed for the determination of vitamin c in 30 different fruits and medicinal plants collected from the local market at peshawar and botanic centre, pcsir labs peshawar. among the fruit samples, the highest amount of vitamin c was found in psidium guajava, while in others the concentration was between 26 and 29 mg/ 100 g. in case of the medicinal plants, the highest amount of ascorbic acid was found in citrullus colocynthis 161.42 mg/ 100g, while least amount was found in foeniculum vulgare 28.54 mg/ 100g. the presence of high amount of vitamin c in medicinal plants than in fruits and their juices is due to its higher stability in these media, as vitamin c is usually highly sensitive to heat, light, ph, time, oxygen, temperature and in aqueous solution etc. the main purpose of the study was to determine the amount of vitamin c in different fruits, their juices and medicinal plants that could be used as a source of vitamin c.