The role of dietary antioxidant in disease prevention has received much attention in recent years. Diet rich in antioxidant are found to be anti –inflammatory. As suggested previously, the boosting of antioxidant micronutrient status of chronic periodontitis patient may have adjunctive therapeutic benefits.

Several studies have demonstrated that patients with periodontitis have significantly lower serum antioxidant levels compared to healthy controls.

Nonsurgical periodontal therapy by itself can reverse this trend and partly restore antioxidant levels but the therapy by alone may not have the desired benefits. It has been suggested that phyto-nutritional intervention in the form of antioxidant supplementation may have a beneficial effects through direct scavenging of reactive oxygen species (ROS)

The reactive oxygen species is mainly measured indirectly as the free radicals are so reactive and short lived that direct measurement is usually not possible.

Thus ROS is measured from the oxidative by-products of lipids proteins and nucleic acids. Uric acid as an end product of purine metabolism, is the most important endogenous antioxidant and acts as a potent free radical scavenger. Lycopene also acts as same.