Vitamin and “oxygen free radical” damage

Vitamin and “oxygen free radical” damage

During the past decade information has accumulated which implies “free radical” damage as potent source of disease in human beings. Free radical is a chemical compound which contains an unpaired electron spinning on the peripheral layer around the nucleus.

       The family of free radicals generated from the oxygen is called reactive oxygen species ROS (ROS) which cause damage to other molecules by extracting electrons from them in order to attain stability. ROS are various forms of activated oxygen, which include free radicals such as superoxide anion radicals (•O2‾) and hydroxyl radicals (OH•), as well as non-free radicals (H2O2) and singlet oxygen (Halliwell, 1995). Nutrient metabolism, aging process etc are endogenous sources of free radical while tobacco smoke, ionizing radiation, air pollution, organic solvents, pesticides, are exogenous sources. ROS can damage DNA and lead to mutation and chromosomal damage. ROS can attack various substrates in body and contribute to development of various chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, inflammation, Alzheimer etc.

      Living organisms have various kinds of antioxidants to fight against ROS and to maintain the redox homeostasis of cell like antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) play important roles in scavenging the free radicals and preventing cell injury. When the mechanism of antioxidant protection becomes unbalanced in human body, antioxidant supplement may be used to help reduce oxidative damage likely that several of vitamins will have a valuable place in the prevention of these diseases which are shown in below Table 1.

Table 1: Different vitamins are important role in free radical scavenging activity

References:

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2. Bergendi L, Benes L, Durackova Z, Ferencik M (1999). Chemistry, physiology and pathology of free radicals. Life Sci. 65: 1865-1874.
3. Halliwell B (1994). Free radicals, antioxidants and human disease: Curiosity, cause or consequence? Lancet. 344: 721-724.
4. Chanda S and Dave R (2009): In vitro models for antioxidant activity evaluation and Some medicinal plants possessing antioxidant properties: an overview. African J Microbiol Res Vol. 3(13) pp. 981-996.