Nutrition and health aspects of free radicals and antioxidants.

Although the role of free radicals has continued to capture the imagination of scientists, the interest in nutritional aspects of free radicals is relatively recent. Oxidative stress, which often arises as a result of the imbalance in the human antioxidant status, has been implicated in ageing and in a number of human diseases such as cancer, atherosclerosis, malaria and in rheumatoid arthritis. This review discusses the current status of free radicals in nutrition and dietary antioxidants and considers the possibility that use of a range of antioxidants, which have been carefully evaluated, combined with methods for measuring oxidant generation, would help to delineate the contribution of nutrients to the modulation of the consequences of free radicals in the human body.