FREE-RADICALS, ATHEROSCLEROSIS, AGING AND RELATED DYSMETABOLIC PATHOLOGIES - BIOCHEMICAL AND MOLECULAR ASPECTS

In human ageing and with many pathologies correlated to the senile fun ctional decay of cells, membrane damage often occurs in some organ or tissue, which provokes lipid peroxidation in the membrane and accelera tes the disorder in structure and function of the membrane, When lipid peroxides accumulate sufficiently, they leak from the organ or tissue into the bloodstream and increase the lipid peroxide level in blood l ipoproteins, The increased lipid peroxides in the blood attack the blo od vessel and promote atherogenesis, This paper describes the possible involvement of free radicals in this damage, both to tissues and to b lood vessels, which contributes to the senile functional decay of the tissues.