The invention relates to the technical field of medicine biological detection, and provides a dehydrogenase activity detection method which can monitor oxidoreductase activity in real time in accordance with color change of a novel tetrazole monosulfonate detection reagent. A tetrazole monosulfonate detection system is adopted, and a good linear dose relationship is presented in detection of dehydrogenase activity; and an EC50 curve is obtained in accordance with an absorbance value of a reactant at 450nm, and dehydrogenase activity evaluation is implemented. The dehydrogenase activity detection method provided by the invention is highly sensitive and is convenient to operate; and the detection method is broad in application range, covering dehydrogenase of various organisms, including archaebacteria (extreme thermophilic bacteria and extreme halophilic bacteria), bacteria (lactobacillus, nitrifying bacteria, escherichia coli, diplococcus pneumoniae and the like), various cellular structure bio-actinomycetes, cyanobacteria (oscillatoria, chroococcus, nostoc and the like), most unicellular algae (chlamydomonas, green algae and the like), fungi (edible fungi, saccharomycetes, mould and the like) as well as animals and plants.