Nutritional Modulation of Gut Inflammation

Inflammatory reaction without endogenous antioxidant response in Caco-2 cells exposed to iron/ascorbate-mediated lipid peroxidation

“…Additional work with other exogenous antioxidants is needed to elucidate this interesting aspect. As to the COX-2 isoenzyme, mounting evidence suggests its direct implication in the production of proinflammatory prostaglandins (49). In the present investigation, COX-2 was found to be induced by iron/ascorbate, whereas BHT was effective in returning COX-2 protein levels back to control values.…”

Omega 3 fatty acids supplementation has an ameliorative effect in experimental ulcerative colitis despite increased colonic neutrophil infiltration

“…Clinical intervention studies and animal experiments showed that N3PUFAs have anti-inflammatory properties (3), which are based on their ability to antagonize the activity of arachidonic acid, thereby reducing the production of inflammatory and chemotactic derivatives and suppressing cell-mediated immune responses (3,4). Furthermore, N3PUFAs suppress leukocyte activity, cell proliferation, inflammatory cytokine synthesis, natural killer cell activity, antibody synthesis and macrophage surface membrane protein expression (5), and they also act as free radical scavengers (6).…”

Nutritional Modulation of the Inflammatory Bowel Response

“…Endogenic-produced hydrogen peroxide is reduced by GSH in the presence of selenium-dependent GSH peroxidase. Thus, GSH is oxidized to GSSG which can then be reduced again to GSH by GSSG reductase, a reaction that is promoted by NADPH consumption, forming an oxidation-reduction cycle [15] . Despite the fact that hydrogen peroxide can be reduced by catalase, this enzyme is only present within the peroxisome.…”

“…Ascorbic acid is an essential micronutrient for the physiological metabolic function as the human organism has lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C. Among its biological actions, vitamin C has a significant antioxidant role by scavenging active oxygen species [24] . Vitamin C also acts as a cooxidant by recreating vitamin E and GSH from the ␣ -tocopherol radical as part of the antioxidant grid [15,25] . Vitamin A has antioxidant activity and regulates immune function as well as epithelial proliferation and differentiation ( table 4 ) [26] .…”

“…Low levels of ascorbic acid may show extensive consumption of it as an antioxidant or may be due to the extremely inadequate uptake of vitamin C or may be because ascorbic acid is consumed in order to recreate GSH and vitamin E [15] . It should be noted that because of the pro-oxidative potential of ascorbic acid particular attention should be paid when trying to restore its levels to normal [33] .…”