Oxidative Stress: What Is It? Can It Be Measured? Where Is It Located? Can It Be Good or Bad? Can It Be Prevented? Can It Be Cured?

Abstract

The meaning, the appropriate usage and the misusage of the terms oxidative stress, oxidative eustress, and oxidative distress have been evaluated. It has been realized that the terms oxidative stress and oxidative damage are often used inappropriately as synonyms. The usage of the term eustress (intended as good stress) is unsuitable to indicate signaling by reactive molecular an event that can be finalistically considered either good or bad, depending on the circumstances. The so defined oxidative distress is an oxidative damage but not an oxidative stress. What is measured and defined as oxidative stress is in fact an oxidative damage. Damaging oxidations and signaling oxidant events (good or bad) can be present, also simultaneously, in different and multiple location of a cell, tissue or body and the measure of an oxidant event in body fluids or tissue specimen can only be the sum of non-separatable events, sometimes of opposite sign. There is no officially approved therapy to prevent or cure oxidative stress or oxidative damage.

Keywords: antioxidants; cell signaling; distress; eustress; oxidative damage; oxidative stress; reactive oxygen species.

Figure 1

Alleged diseases linked to oxidative stress (modified from [6]).

Figure 2

Cellular production of reactive oxygen species Reproduced from [10].