Defence against reactive oxygen species

As part of the European Commission Concerted Action on Functional Food whic h was managed by the International Life Sciences Institute (Europe) a serie s of Theme Papers was produced which examined the 'state of the art' with r espect to the subject matter and made recommendations for research. This pa per is a summary of the paper concerned with Defence Against Reactive Oxyge n species. Having reviewed the scientific literature the authors concluded that certain stringent criteria, which they identified, would need to be sa tisfied in order to be able to conclude that free radical events are involv ed in certain human diseases, and that antioxidants are capable of modulati ng these events and thus reducing the risk of disease. Although there is so me evidence that would lead to this conclusion the authors demonstrated tha t there is at present insufficient evidence available on which to base a fi rm conclusion that antioxidants are capable of reducing risk of disease, an d very little evidence that addresses the important question as to how much of the nutrients concerned are required in the diet to achieve the objecti ve of reducing risk. Research priorities address the need in particular for the development and validation of cellular markers of oxidative damage whi ch are required before there can be new human studies that address the ques tion. There is also a need for more information as to the pharmacokinetics of uptake from diet, distribution and cellular concentration of the antioxi dants.