Oxidative stress during aging

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Your brain is your greatest asset but it is also your body's most vulnerable organ. It requires constant support from other major organs and is your most susceptible organ to oxidative stress during aging.

Here are some brain facts:

1. Your brain makes up only 2% of your total body weight but requires 20% of your heart�s output of blood to sustain the amount of oxygen that it needs.
2. Your brain is the most oxygen-demanding organ in your body.
3. Your brain uses chemicals (neurotransmitters) to relay important messages to other parts of your body. These same chemicals are also involved in chemical reactions that produce damaging free radicals.
4. If your brain cells become weak or die they cannot repair themselves. Their functions then can be permanently lost if cell death or damage occurs.

Given these susceptibilities, your brain is especially vulnerable to conditions that threaten oxygen supply, such as in head injury, stroke, lung diseases and heart failure. Under these conditions, brain activity will continue even without enough oxygen. This can cause problems that lead to extreme levels of oxidative stress and the over-production of damaging free radicals.

In diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, other damaging factors are at work. In Alzheimer's disease, a toxic protein called beta-amyloid, forms in your brain tissue. This protein acts as an irritant and causes inflammation in your brain. This inflammation then causes the production of free radicals that can destroy any membranes and cells in their path.

Even in a healthy brain, oxygen radicals are produced every moment during normal high-oxygen demand of neuronal activity. In a healthy brain, enzymes and nutritional antioxidants neutralize these radicals.