Decrease Oxidative Stress Naturally in Healthy Older Men and Women?

Posted by admin November 8th, 2013

Compared with young adults, older adults have significantly impaired capacities to resist oxidative damage when faced with acute stress such as ischemia/reperfusion. This impairment likely contributes to increased morbidity and mortality in older adults in response to acute trauma, infections, and the susceptibility to diseases such as atherosclerosis, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease.  Consumption of foods high in polyphenols, particularly anthocyanins, have been associated with improved health, but the mechanisms contributing to these salutary effects remain to be fully established.

A study tested the hypothesis that consumption of tart cherry juice containing high levels of anthocyanins improves the capacity of older adults to resist oxidative damage during acute oxidative stress. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design, data suggests that consumption of tart cherry juice improves antioxidant defenses in vivo in older adults as shown by an increased capacity to constrain an oxidative challenge and reduced oxidative damage to nucleic acids.

Oxidative stress, defined as an imbalance between the rate of formation and the rate of clearance of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS), is thought to be a key mechanism in the aging process and in a variety of age-related chronic diseases, including atherosclerosis, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Research has recently shown that healthy older adults have an impaired capacity to resist oxidative damage after exposure to an acute stress compared with young adults.  This impairment may account for the greater morbidity and mortality of older adults compared with young adults during trauma, infections, or surgery, as well as their increased susceptibility to cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disease.   Acute stress increases production of reactive oxygen species and frequently occurs in acute events that afflict older adults such as trauma, cardiovascular disease, and surgery.

The antioxidative capacity of older adults appears to be sufficient to maintain homeostasis in non-stressed conditions, but insufficient to cope with a substantial oxidative challenge. Therefore, identifying interventions that improve resistance to oxidative damage during an acute challenge might be of great potential value in decreasing morbidity and mortality in older adults, even if these interventions do not affect basal levels of oxidation.

It has been proposed that the antioxidant activities of fruits and vegetables come from the additive and synergistic effects of their phytonutrients and that isolated dietary supplements do not exhibit these same benefits.  Therefore, an intervention that would provide a natural blend of phytonutrients lead to Tart cherries which have high levels of antioxidants in the form of phenolic compounds and anthocyanins.  Diets rich in polyphenols, especially anthocyanins, have been shown to increase resistance to oxidation in research models.

Because anthocyanins can activate xenobiotic responses, including expression of a plethora of antioxidant response genes, it is hypothesized that increasing the dietary intake of diverse antioxidants, such as those contained in tart cherry juice, would increase resistance to oxidative damage after an acute stress, an effect that could potentially dramatically improve resistance to morbidity and mortality in older adults.

The conclusion of the data from a placebo-controlled, crossover study demonstrated that a dietary antioxidant intervention through consumption of tart cherry juice improves antioxidant defenses in vivo in older adults as shown by an increased capacity to resist oxidative damage after an acute stress and reduced oxidative damage to nucleic acids. The results also highlighted the observation that various markers of oxidative damage may reflect different mechanisms of resistance to oxidative damage.

 

References:   The Journal of Nutritionhttp://jn.nutrition.org
published online August 19, 2009; doi:10.3945/jn.109.111716
research study conducted –
Kronos Longevity Research Institute, Phoenix, AZ; 5Kronos Science Laboratory, Phoenix, AZ 85016; and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN 37232

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