Defense against reactive oxygen species.

As part of the European Commission Concerted Action on Functional Food which was managed by the International Life Sciences Institute (Europe) a series of Theme Papers was produced which examined the 'state of the art' with respect to the subject matter and made recommendations for research. This paper is a summary of the paper concerned with Defence Against Reactive Oxygen species. Having reviewed the scientific literature the authors concluded that certain stringent criteria, which they identified, would need to be satisfied in order to be able to conclude that free radical events are involved in certain human diseases, and that antioxidants are capable of modulating these events and thus reducing the risk of disease. Although there is some evidence that would lead to this conclusion the authors demonstrated that there is at present insufficient evidence available on which to base a firm conclusion that antioxidants are capable of reducing risk of disease, and very little evidence that addresses the important question as to how much of the nutrients concerned are required in the diet to achieve the objective of reducing risk. Research priorities address the need in particular for the development and validation of cellular markers of oxidative damage which are required before there can be new human studies that address the question. There is also a need for more information as to the pharmacokinetics of uptake from diet, distribution and cellular concentration of the antioxidants.