What is it about?
It shows that, inside each cell in our body, there are several distinct compartments that contain oxidants. The oxidants in each compartment may have different kind of effects on the function of our cells (thus our body) depending on the amount of oxidants in each compartment. More importantly, this study shows that inter-communication between these compartmental oxidants is critical for proper cellular function in our body, especially on our heart and the blood vessels that supply oxygen and nutrients to the heart.
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Why is it important?
This study is very important as it clearly shows that oxidants play important positive roles in the function of our heart and its blood supply. Thus, the current notion that oxidants are bad and anti-oxidants are good has been clearly challenged with this novel finding. It is important also because this study used genetic (transgenic) animal model, not only vascular cells. Conclusion from this study suggests that initial increase in oxidant during heart attack (and other inflammatory conditions such as diabetes, arthritis, etc) may play positive role for recovery of the heart function, and thus we should not use antioxidants as a general measure. This study also corroborates the findings of the HOPE Clinical Trials that involved more than 7,000 patients with heart disease, where physicians treated them with large-dose antioxidants for 5 years and found no beneficial effects!
Perspectives
From the findings of this study, I would like to emphasize that we should not use global antioxidants as a measure to prevent or treat cardiovascular (heart) disease in patients. Instead, we should further study the role of sub-cellular (compartmental such as mitochondria, cytosolic, peroxisomal, etc) oxidants to regulate functions of blood vessels and heart. The initial increase in oxidants after an insult to the body (heart attack, inflammation, etc) occurs most likely to help the cells cope with the new situation by altering metabolic (activation of AMPK to alter AMP vs ATP) and signaling pathways. It may thus be harmful to attempt to reduce total cellular oxidant levels. Instead we should focus on temporal (time-dependent) and compartmental oxidant regulations in the heart and blood vessel diseases. So what about antioxidants in the market which are available as the OTC drugs? My suggestions would be to keep on using naturally occurring vitamins (C, E) as micro-nutrients for our body from the food sources (such as lime, lemon, oranges, lentils, leguminous plants) but not as OTC drugs that pack them in high doses as antioxidants.
Ruhul Abid, MD PhD
Brown University Alpert Medical School
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Mitochondrial redox plays a critical role in the paradoxical effects of NAPDH oxidase-derived ROS on coronary endothelium, Cardiovascular Research, January 2017, European Society of Cardiology,
DOI: 10.1093/cvr/cvw249.
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