Oxidative stress, Chinese herbals and toxicity: a focused review with examples

Abstract

As a double-edged sword, reactive oxygen species (ROS) are extensively involved in the modulation of cell signal transduction in life processes with normal physiological concentrations, whereas overproduction of ROS can result in oxidative stress, leading to various diseases including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, cancers, and so on. Thus, maintaining redox balance between oxidant and antioxidant is important to prevent oxidative stress. For the most ideal status, it may be neither excessive oxidative damage nor oxidation overexpression that attacks normal cellular physiological processes. Accumulating evidence suggest that antioxidants, such as Chinese herbal medicines, are essential for the reduction of oxidative stress. In this regard, it is worthy to discuss the preventive strategies for the inhibition of oxidative stress. In this review, we describes recent advances regarding the understanding of antioxidant defense systems for redox homeostasis, and antioxidant-rich Chinese herbal medicines within four categories: flavonoid, saponins, polysaccharides, and phenolic acids.