The Impact of Different Antioxidant Agents alone or in Combination on Reactive Oxygen Species, Antioxidant Enzymes and Cytokines in a Series of Advanced Cancer Patients at Different Sites: Correlation with Disease Progression

Abstract

In the present study we tested the ability of different antioxidant agents, used alone or in combination, to reduce the reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels and to increase the glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity. Moreover, we tested the ability of such antioxidant agents to reduce the serum levels of proinflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNFalpha. Fifty-six advanced stage cancer patients with tumors at different sites were included in the study: they were mainly stage III (12.5%) and stage IV (82.1%). The study was divided into two phases. In the 1st phase 28 patients were divided into five groups and a single different antioxidant agent was administered to each group. The selected antioxidant agents were: alpha lipoic acid or carboxycysteine-lysine salt, amifostine, reduced glutathione, vitamin A plus vitamin E plus Vitamin C. In the 2nd phase of the study 28 patients were divided into five groups and a combination of two different antioxidant agents was administered to each group. The antioxidant treatment was administered for 10 consecutive days. The patients were studied at baseline and after antioxidant treatment. Our results show that all single antioxidants tested were effective in reducing the ROS levels and three of them in increasing GPx activity, too. Among the combinations of antioxidant agents, three were effective in reducing ROS, while three were effective in increasing GPx activity (arm 4 was effective in both instances). Comprehensively, the "antioxidant treatment" was found to be effective both on ROS levels and GPx activity. Moreover, the antioxidant treatment was able to reduce serum levels of IL-6 and TNFalpha. Furthermore, a correlation was shown between the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status of patients and blood levels of ROS, GPx activity, serum levels of proinflammatory cytokines.

Reactive oxygen species, antioxidant mechanisms and serum cytokine levels in cancer patients: impact of an antioxidant treatment

“…Thereby the different personal preferences and/or patient compliance may be addressed. Secondly, they have been shown to be effective in our hands [39] and in several of the papers below cited. Thirdly, they have different mechanisms of action.…”

Therapeutic perspectives on the combination of α-lipoic acid and vitamin E

“…Taken together, this evidence strongly suggests that combining ALA and VE is better than monotherapy. In parallel, the ALA-VE mixture has been combined with other dietary antioxidants, such as vitamin C, beta-carotene, and selenium, and evaluated under several conditions of exercise, experimental diabetes, cold, age and cancer, and promising results have also been obtained [46][47][48][49][50][51].…”

Nutrition in oncology: the case of micronutrients (Review)

“…The latter is associated with an increased formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) which could be detected in cancer patients (53).…”

“…Besides an adequate intake of energy-building substrates, an optimum supply of micronutrients is also required (27)(28)(29)(30)147). Therefore, in recent years the administration of micronutrient supplements to cancer patients has gained growing interest (31, [47][48][49][50][51]53,54,56). From the dietetic-therapeutic point of view, such substances can perform the following functions (148): i) compensation of a nutrient deficit induced by the cancer disease itself and/ or the antineoplastic therapy with the aim of improving the patient's nutritional status; and ii) specific supplementation for dietetic-therapeutic purposes aiming less at the supply of nutrients, rather at taking a beneficial influence on the course of the disease.…”

“…Against this background it is evident that a supportive nutrition therapy should be an integral part of cancer care (44)(45)(46). In addition to a sufficient supply of energy substrates, vitamins and minerals as well as long-chain ˆ-3 fatty acids are becoming more and more interesting (31, [47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56], although the therapeutic benefit of such supplements is the subject of a controversial discussion, especially in respect ONCOLOGY REPORTS 24: 815-828, 2010 of supplements with high concentrations of antioxidants like the vitamins C and E and the trace element selenium (57)(58)(59)(60)(61)(62)(63)(64)(65)(66).…”