Free radicals and other reactive oxygen metabolites: clinical relevance and the therapeutic efficacy of antioxidant therapy.

As in any new field, justifiable enthusiasm for the potential for antioxidant therapy has led to hyperbole, hastily designed, poorly conceived clinical trials, and premature reporting of uncontrolled, anecdotal indicators of efficacy that have not held up when subjected to close scrutiny or more careful, controlled trial design. This tendency has been augmented by strong pressure for early positive results from a few, but not most, members of the pharmaceutical industry and by a few clinicians in highly competitive fields who were anxious not to be left behind. The sobering reality of negative or, even worse, indeterminate clinical trials has culled the field and educated those that remain. As a result, we are beginning to see the publication of quite promising results from large, well-controlled, carefully designed clinical studies, many, but not all, of which are quite promising. This has been associated with a much better understanding of the basic mechanism of free radical-mediated human disease, without which further substantial progress would be quite limited. Because the manipulation of oxidant-mediated tissue injury represents treating disease at its most basic level, the therapeutic potential of this approach remains not only promising but exciting.