Fraga Cesar G, Oteiza Patricia I, Galleano Monica
Physical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University of Buenos Aires - Institute of Molecular Biochemistry and Medicine (IBIMOL), National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Department of Nutrition, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Biochim Biophys Acta. 2014 Feb;1840(2):931-4. doi: 10.1016/j.bbagen.2013.06.030. Epub 2013 Jul 2.
One of the strategies most commonly used to assess a free radical-antioxidant balance in chemical and biological systems is the determination of the total antioxidant capacity (TAC). A large amount of research has been published using TAC. However, it remains unclear which is the significance of these investigations for understanding the biological importance of free radical reactions.
This review discusses the relevance and limitations of TAC for the assessment of the antioxidant activities present in food and food derivatives, and in body tissues and fluids.
TAC determinations are simple, inexpensive, and able to evaluate the capacity of known and unknown antioxidants and their additive, synergistic and/or antagonistic actions, in chemical and biological systems. However, different TAC assays correlate poorly with each other, since each TAC assay is sensitive to a particular combination of compounds, but exclude many others. The TAC values for foods cannot be translated to the in vivo (human) antioxidant defenses, and furthermore, to health effects provided by that food.
Up to date, conclusions that can be drawn from the extensive amount of research done using TAC of foods or populations should not be considered when used for making decisions affecting population health. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Current methods to study reactive oxygen species - pros and cons and biophysics of membrane proteins. Guest Editor: Christine Winterbourn.
在化学和生物系统中，用于评估自由基 - 抗氧化剂平衡最常用的策略之一是测定总抗氧化能力（TAC）。已经发表了大量使用TAC的研究。然而，这些研究对于理解自由基反应的生物学重要性的意义仍不清楚。
本综述讨论了TAC在评估食品及食品衍生物、身体组织和体液中存在的抗氧化活性方面的相关性和局限性。
TAC测定简单、廉价，并且能够评估化学和生物系统中已知和未知抗氧化剂的能力及其相加、协同和/或拮抗作用。然而，不同的TAC测定方法之间相关性很差，因为每种TAC测定方法对特定的化合物组合敏感，但排除了许多其他化合物。食品的TAC值不能转化为体内（人体）的抗氧化防御，此外，也不能转化为该食品所提供的健康效应。
迄今为止，在做出影响人群健康的决策时，不应考虑从使用食品或人群的TAC进行大量研究中得出的值。本文是名为“研究活性氧的当前方法 - 利弊与膜蛋白生物物理学”的特刊的一部分。客座编辑：克里斯汀·温特伯恩。
