antioxidants tagged posts

In fruit flies, antioxidants reverse tumor-related cardiac dysfunction. A new study in animal models shows that the presence of a cancer tumor alone can lead to cardiac damage, and suggests the culprits are molecules are free radicals interacting with specific cells in the heart.

Tumors in mice and fruit flies led to varying degrees of cardiac dysfunction – particularly a decrease in the heart’s blood-pumping capabilities.

Adding specific types of antioxidants to food consumed by fruit flies with tumors reversed the damage to their hearts – a finding suggesting that harm caused by free radicals was the likely link between cancer and cardiac dysfunction.

“Cancer becomes a systemic disease...

Fasting may help people lose weight, but new research suggests going without food may also boost human metabolic activity, generate antioxidants, and help reverse some effects of aging. Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) and Kyoto University identified 30 previously-unreported substances whose quantity increases during fasting and indicate a variety of health benefits.

“We have been researching aging and metabolism for many years and decided to search for unknown health effects in human ...

A Japanese research team has become the first in the world to discover that 2-aminobutyric acid (2-AB) is closely involved in the metabolic regulation of the antioxidant glutathione, and that it can effectively raise levels of glutathione in the body when ingested. Glutathione plays an important role in keeping us healthy. This finding could contribute to the development of new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat various oxidative stress-related conditions including Alzheimer’s, aging, cancer, lifestyle-related diseases, hardened arteries, and rgan damage caused by medicines and toxins.

Glutathione is a major antioxidant component within cells, contributing to the detoxification of foreign substances...

Propionibacterium acnes. Credit: Matthias Mörgelin, Lund University

Rolf Lood from Lund University in Sweden has shown that the most common bacteria on human skin, Propionibacterium acnes secrete a protein which protects us from the reactive oxygen species thought to contribute to several skin diseases. The protein has an equally strong effect on dangerous oxygen species as known antioxidants eg vitamin C and E.

“The name originates from the fact that the bacterium was first discovered on a patient with severe acne. But whether it causes acne is uncertain – it may have been present merely because it is so common,” says Rolf Lood, Lund. He has discovered that the “acne bacterium” secretes a proteinm RoxP...