Bamboo leaves contain abundant flavonoids and other bio active substances which have excellent
scavenging capacity
on reactive oxygen radicals.Methods and Results: (a) The prior works by chemiluminesence (CL) showed the bamboo leaf extracts (BLE) possessed generally strong
scavenging capacity on reactive oxygen radicals. The effective concentrations of bamboo leaf
functional factors (BLFF) were in the rangs of 0.1-10mg/L on O · 2 and 10μg-1g/L on ·OH respectively. In X XOD Luminol model which produces O · 2, BLFF at 5g/L, equal to 6 300 times of IC 50 , still scavenged O · 2 entirely; and in the VC Cu 2+ H 2O 2 yeast polysaccharide system which produces ·OH, BLFF at 5g/L did not contribute prooxidant effect too. These revealed that the effective fractions in bamboo leaves have excellent and stable antioxidative activity. (b) Multimedia experiments, PR auto oxidation and ESR were also used to evaluate the scavenging capacity on O · 2 of several preparations of bamboo leaves. Results coincided with that of CL. (c) In order to investigate the effect of BLE on endo antioxidases in vivo, a feeding test of aged mice was done taking bee pollen as control. After 35 days,the results showed that BLE significantly promoted the activities of SOD and GSH Px of aged mice. In combination with the experimental results both in vitro and in vivo, it is attained that bamboo leaves contain a class of functional factor which has the effect of anti free radicals and anti oxidation.