Dov Litchenberg
Tel Aviv University, Israel
Title: Oxidative stress, the concept, the term and possible quantitation
Biography:
Dov Litchenberg, BS, MS and PhD in Chemistry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Post Doc in Chemical Biophysics, Caltech (1972-1974), Lecturer , Hebrew University (1974-1979),Visiting Professor, University of Virginia (1979-1981), Professor, Tel Aviv University (981-2011) Previous Dean of Medicine (2002-2006). Professor Emeritus (2011-present). Present Topics: Solubilization and reconstitution of membranes, Oxidative stress and Antioxidants, Admission to Medical schools
Abstract:
Oxidative stress (OS), caused by access reactive oxygen species (ROS) is intuitively defined and commonly blamed for being involved in the pathogenesis of many diseases, particularly inflammatory diseases. Yet, many antioxidant supplementation studies yielded disappointing results, attributed to the important physiological role of ROS. A reasonable but questionable explanation is that high-risk groups (people with high OS) would benefit most from antioxidant interventions. This yielded the "identify and treat" approach, based on the assumption that OS assays can enable identification of people under high OS and treat only these people with antioxidants.
A major problem is the lack of a universal criterion for OS and the low level of the (very significant but weak) correlations between the OS, as evaluated on the basis of serum steady state concentrations. Different biomarkers yield different results, presumably due to the existence of different types of OS.
Currently, quantifying OS is of limited applied value, namely OS is not a diagnostic tool. This conclusion is strongly supported by analyses of the findings of the MARK AGE study.
Specifically:
(1) People with the highest 10% OS according to different biomarkers exhibit only small overlapping and
(2) Different biomarkers yield different dependences of the OS on age and gender.