Ermakov Igor V, Sharifzadeh M, Ermakova Maia, Gellermann W
University of Utah, Department of Physics, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
J Biomed Opt. 2005 Nov-Dec;10(6):064028. doi: 10.1117/1.2139974.
Increasing evidence points to the beneficial effects of carotenoid antioxidants in the human body. Several studies, for example, support the protective role of lutein and zeaxanthin in the prevention of age-related eye diseases. If present in high concentrations in the macular region of the retina, lutein and zeaxanthin provide pigmentation in this most light sensitive retinal spot, and as a result of light filtering and/or antioxidant action, delay the onset of macular degeneration with increasing age. Other carotenoids, such as lycopene and beta-carotene, play an important role as well in the protection of skin from UV and short-wavelength visible radiation. Lutein and lycopene may also have protective function for cardiovascular health, and lycopene may play a role in the prevention of prostate cancer. Motivated by the growing importance of carotenoids in health and disease, and recognizing the lack of any accepted noninvasive technology for the detection of carotenoids in living human tissue, we explore resonance Raman spectroscopy as a novel approach for noninvasive, laser optical carotenoid detection. We review the main results achieved recently with the Raman detection approach. Initially we applied the method to the detection of macular carotenoid pigments, and more recently to the detection of carotenoids in human skin and mucosal tissues. Using skin carotenoid Raman instruments, we measure the carotenoid response from the stratum corneum layer of the palm of the hand for a population of 1375 subjects and develop a portable skin Raman scanner for field studies. These experiments reveal that carotenoids are a good indicator of antioxidant status. They show that people with high oxidative stress, like smokers, and subjects with high sunlight exposure, in general, have reduced skin carotenoid levels, independent of their dietary carotenoid consumption. We find the Raman technique to be precise, specific, sensitive, and well suitable for clinical as well as field studies. The noninvasive laser technique may become a useful method for the correlation between tissue carotenoid levels and risk for malignancies or other degenerative diseases associated with oxidative stress.
越来越多的证据表明类胡萝卜素抗氧化剂对人体有益。例如，多项研究支持叶黄素和玉米黄质在预防与年龄相关的眼部疾病方面的保护作用。如果叶黄素和玉米黄质在视网膜黄斑区域高浓度存在，它们会在这个最敏感的视网膜部位提供色素沉着，并且由于光过滤和/或抗氧化作用，随着年龄增长延迟黄斑变性的发生。其他类胡萝卜素，如番茄红素和β-胡萝卜素，在保护皮肤免受紫外线和短波长可见光辐射方面也起着重要作用。叶黄素和番茄红素对心血管健康也可能具有保护功能，并且番茄红素可能在预防前列腺癌中发挥作用。鉴于类胡萝卜素在健康和疾病中的重要性日益增加，同时认识到缺乏任何公认的用于检测活体人体组织中类胡萝卜素的非侵入性技术，我们探索共振拉曼光谱作为一种用于非侵入性激光光学类胡萝卜素检测的新方法。我们回顾了最近通过拉曼检测方法取得的主要成果。最初我们将该方法应用于黄斑类胡萝卜素色素的检测，最近则应用于人体皮肤和黏膜组织中类胡萝卜素的检测。使用皮肤类胡萝卜素拉曼仪器，我们对1375名受试者测量了手掌角质层的类胡萝卜素反应，并开发了一种用于现场研究的便携式皮肤拉曼扫描仪。这些实验表明类胡萝卜素是抗氧化状态的良好指标。它们表明，一般来说，具有高氧化应激的人群，如吸烟者，以及阳光暴露量高的受试者，其皮肤类胡萝卜素水平降低，与他们的饮食类胡萝卜素摄入量无关。我们发现拉曼技术精确、特异、灵敏，非常适合临床和现场研究。这种非侵入性激光技术可能成为一种有用的方法，用于关联组织类胡萝卜素水平与恶性肿瘤或其他与氧化应激相关的退行性疾病的风险。
