Abstract
Albeit the existence of ‘free radicals’ having been known for a considerable time within the sphere of chemistry, these interesting kinds of oxidizing molecules attracted the attention of medical scientists and physicians during the early 1950s when Denham Harman started to publish a number of reports on the “free radical theory of aging”. Two decades later, grounded in the recognition that free radical production in the cell occurs mainly in the mitochondria and that mutations of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are strongly involved in the aging process, this theory evolved into the “mitochondrial theory of aging”. Despite the ‘theory’ label, the entire medical world believes, at least in part, in the truth of this explanation for the underlying mechanisms of - the unavoidable biological process - aging. Starting with the 1970s, overwhelming research...
Highlights
Albeit the existence of ‘free radicals’ having been known for a considerable time within the sphere of chemistry, these interesting kinds of oxidizing molecules attracted the attention of medical scientists and physicians during the early 1950s when Denham Harman started to publish a number of reports on the “free radical theory of aging” [1]
Starting with the 1970s, overwhelming research began to appear in the medical literature elucidating the relationship between free radicals with this or that pathophysiological condition which resulted in the formulation of the definition of “free radical diseases” [4]
Short after the discovery by Ignarro et al [6] that the endogenous vascular dilating mediator widely known as the endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) was nitric oxide (NO), a gaseous radical molecule, another term, namely ‘reactive nitrogen species’ was included to the nomenclature of this particular field of science
Summary
Albeit the existence of ‘free radicals’ having been known for a considerable time within the sphere of chemistry, these interesting kinds of oxidizing molecules attracted the attention of medical scientists and physicians during the early 1950s when Denham Harman started to publish a number of reports on the “free radical theory of aging” [1]. Keywords Oxidants; Antioxidants; Free radicals; Reactive species; Redox signalling
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