Volume 87, Issue 1, September (2002), pp. 94-94 © The Author 2002
doi:10.1079/BJN2001488

Evidence in support of a concept of reductive stress: Reply

Miklós Ghyczy¹ and Mihály Boros^2
1Rhône-Poulenc-Rorer Co. Cologne Germany
² Institute of Surgical Research University of Szeged Hungary

We are writing to agree with Dr B Lipinski's perceptive comments (Lipinski, 2002) and to suggest that they are of wide relevance. In particular, the importance of reductive stress should be more widely recognized. The prevailing view is extraordinarily blinkered. In PubMed (2001) there are 8957 citations to oxidative stress and none to reductive stress. This reflects not reality, but the mistaken but widely held ideas that oxidative stress is common, that it is the main source of biological free radicals, and that it is (or should be) susceptible to correction with antioxidants. In fact, extensive clinical and experimental work over the past 30 years has failed to reveal a single abnormal clinical state which could be confidently ascribed to oxidative stress or, more importantly, which has convincingly benefited fromantioxidants. One reason is probably the initial difficulty of grasping the concept of reductive stress: another the relative paucity of experimental methods for demonstrating and measuring it.