Abstract
This article reviews aspects of past, present and future potential of oxidants and antioxidants in clinical medicine. Beginning with the observation that antioxidants help to defend against cellular lipid peroxidation and lipofuscin and ceroid pigment formation, the review moves to epidemiological and clinical intervention information that specifies the molecular mode of action of various antioxidants in helping to defend against oxidative stress. This discussion is presented in the context of free radical pathology and its relationship to reactive oxygen species and the interrelationship of these processes to free radical chain termination mediated by enzyme and small molecule antioxidants. Accumulating medical and scientific literature in this area indicates that many clinical problems in medicine, both chronic and acute, are related to the maintenance of the intracellular redox potential. This review details new methods of assessing oxidative stress, evaluating need for specific antioxidant therapy and following the progress of intervention utilizing markers of redox potential in the patient. The emphasis is on development of a new, comprehensive model for viewing oxidants and antioxidants in a clinical context, and on the management of antioxidant disorders using a series of redox reagents derived from specific foods which yield high concentrations of vitamin E, vitamin C, flavonoids, carotenes, polyphenols and quinoids.