Antioxidant therapies for Alzheimer's disease

Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2012:2012:472932. doi: 10.1155/2012/472932. Epub 2012 Jul 25.

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disease featuring progressive impairments in memory, cognition, and behavior and ultimately leads to death. The histopathological changes of Alzheimer's disease include neuronal and synaptic loss, formation of extracellular senile plaques and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles in brain. Multiple lines of evidence indicate that oxidative stress not only strongly participates in an early stage of Alzheimer's disease prior to cytopathology, but plays an important role in inducing and activating multiple cell signaling pathways that contribute to the lesion formations of toxic substances and then promotes the development of Alzheimer's disease. Many years of studies show that antioxidant therapies have enjoyed general success in preclinical studies. Therefore, this paper mainly focuses on the recent developments of common used antioxidant therapies for Alzheimer's disease and thus provides indications for future potential antioxidant therapeutic strategies of neurodegenerative diseases.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Alzheimer Disease / drug therapy*
  • Alzheimer Disease / epidemiology
  • Alzheimer Disease / pathology
  • Alzheimer Disease / physiopathology
  • Animals
  • Antioxidants / chemistry
  • Antioxidants / pharmacology
  • Antioxidants / therapeutic use*
  • DNA / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Lipid Peroxidation / drug effects
  • Mitochondria / drug effects
  • Mitochondria / metabolism
  • Oxidative Stress / drug effects

Substances

  • Antioxidants
  • DNA