Antioxidant Potential and Its Changes Caused by Various Factors in Lesser-Known Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

The review focuses on the evaluation of antioxidant potential and its changes by various factors such as growing conditions, the use of fertilizers, the analyzed part of the plant, the solvent used, the extraction method, purifying procedures, and the determination method for selected medicinal and aromatic plants that are lesser-known as antioxidant sources. The lesser-known representatives of Lamiaceae family (Lamium album, Leonurus cardiaca, Hyssopus officinalis, Scutellaria baicalensis), Asteraceae family (Artemisia absinthium), Myrtaceae family (Pimenta dioica), and Rosaceae family (Crataegus laevigata) were selected. The most important factors affecting antioxidant potential are the used solvent and its polarity (water and its temperature, ethanol, mixture of these solvents, methanol, n-butanol, and ethylacetate), extraction techniques, essential oil preparation, and the type and conditions of antioxidant activity (AA) determination method (DPPH, ABTS, FRAP, etc.). The plant composition and the occurrence of biologically active compounds (BACs), such as phenolics (phenolic acids and flavonoids) that participate in their biological impacts and deactivate reactive oxygen species, are also described. This work thus provides a summary of this issue and an extension of information focused on factors that affect plant components’ presence and thus have an impact on the overall antioxidant potential (total polyphenol content TPC, antioxidant activity) of lesser-known plant representatives with antioxidant effect.