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Oxygen Free Radicals in Medicine
| Article
# : |
14646 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1988 |
1,932 Words |
| Author
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Carol A. Colton and Daniel L. Gilber
Carol A. Colton is assistant professor of physiology at
Georgetown University Medical School. Daniel L. Gilbert is a
research physiologist at the U.S. National Institutes of
Health. |
Oxygen free radicals are highly reactive and short-lived species that, if not controlled, may have devastating effects on biological systems. Oxygen free radicals are by-products of certain energy-releasing electron-transfer processes in which oxygen is vital. In terms of oxygen free radical dynamics, most living creatures utilize an array of diverse mechanisms to maintain the balance between health and pathology or, in the extreme, between life and death. Medical researchers are just beginning to unravel these complex dynamics.
In a three-part series, WORLD & I has explained free-radicals according to the following pattern:
Part I introduced the basic concept of free radical processes and surveyed the history and development of the field (see THE WORLD & I, March 1988).
PART II examined free radical processes and their consequences in living systems (see THE WORLD & I, April 1988).
In this issue, Part III explores recent discoveries of, and efforts to develop appropriate treatment for, oxygen free radical activity in some tissue-damaging traumas caused by disease or injury.
At least once a day in the typical hospital emergency room, a patient is brought in suffering from a heart attack. In severe cases where the heart has stopped, physicians and nurses work against time to return the flow of life-giving, oxygen-containing blood to the body's tissues.
The commonsense view is that once the blood reaches the tissues, normal cellular metabolism, which is based on oxygen, can resume. Research now shows, however, that restoration of oxygen supply to the cells may result in tissue damage from oxygen.
In this case, oxygen is a killer, not a healer. The disruption of blood flow has produced an abnormal condition beyond the body's normal range of response. For oxygen to be a healer and bringer of life, it must be carefully controlled. Metabolism of oxygen provides most of the energy to run cells, but the very process that extracts the high energy of oxygen also produces deleterious by-products. Living organisms possess a remarkable array of ways both to utilize oxygen and to survive its harmful side effects (see Part II, "Free Radicals in Biological systems," by Taylor and
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