Work

Oxidants and antioxidants: friends or foes?

Year: 2012

Type: article

Abstract: Albeit the existence of ‘free radicals ’ having been known for a considerable time within the sphere of chemistry, these interesting kinds of oxidizing molecules attracted the attention of medical scientists and physicians during the early 1950s when Denham Harman started to publish a number of reports on the “free radical theory of aging ” [1]. Two decades later, grounded in the recognition that free radical production in the cell occurs mainly in the mitochondria and that mutations of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are strongly involved in the aging process, this theory evolved into the “mitochondrial theory of aging ” [2, 3]. Despite the ‘theory ’ label, the entire medical world believes, at least in part, in the truth of this explanation for the underlying mechanisms of- the unavoidable biological process-aging. Starting with the 1970s, overwhelming research began to appear in the medical literature elucidating the relationship between free radicals with this or that pathophysiological condition which resulted in the formulation of the definition of “free radical diseases ” [4]. Through this, many pathologies such as essential hypertension, atherosclerosis, autoimmune diseases and cancer were explained by the involvement of free radicals [5]. Depending on the molecular source or basis, the simple term ‘free radical ’ became widened by other descriptions such as ‘reactive oxygen species ’ or ‘oxygen free radicals’. Short after the discovery by Ignarro et al [6] that the endogenous vascular dilating mediator widely known as the endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) was nitric oxide (NO•), a gaseous radical molecule, another term, namely ‘reactive nitrogen species ’ was included to the nomenclature of this particular field of science.

Source: Oxidants and Antioxidants in Medical Science

DOI: 10.5455/oams.080612.ed.001

Authors: Sukru Oter, Si Jin, Luca Cucullo, HJ Dorman

Institutions: Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, University of Helsinki

Language: English

Topic: Antioxidant Activity and Oxidative Stress

Subfield: Biochemistry

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institute on Drug Abuse