Systemic oxidative stress associated with the neurological diseases of aging

JORGE A. SERRA; ENRIQUE R. MARSCHOFF; RAÚL O. DOMÍNGUEZ; EDUARDO M GUARESCHI; ARTURO L. FAMULARI; ALBERTO BOVERIS

NEUROCHEMICAL RESEARCH

SPRINGER/PLENUM PUBLISHERS

Lugar: EUA; Año: 2009 vol. 34 p. 2122 - 2132

0364-3190

Abstract Markers of oxidative stress were measured in blood samples of 338 subjects (965 observations): Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, diabetes (type II) superimposed to dementias, Parkinson’s disease and controls. Patients showed increased thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (+21%; P<0.05), copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (`+64%; P<0.001) and decreased antioxidant capacity (-28%; P<0.001); pairs of variables resulted linearly related across groups (P<0.001). Catalase and glutathione peroxidase, involved in discrimination between diseases, resulted non-significant. When diabetes is superimposed with dementias, changes resulted less marked but significant. Also, superoxide dismutase resulted not linearly correlated with any other variable or age-related (pure Alzheimer’s peaks at 70 years, P<0.001). Systemic oxidative stress was significantly associated (P<0.001) with all diseases indicating a disbalance in peripheral/adaptive responses to oxidative disorders through different free radical metabolic pathways. While other changes—methionine cycle, insulin correlation—are also associated with dementias, the responses presented here show a simple linear relation between prooxidants and antioxidant defenses.