Antioxidants: elixirs of life or media hype?

Abstract The first organisms to evolve on the Earth were anaerobes: there was initially little or no O2 intheatmosphere. As the O2 content rose, some organisms adapted by evolving antioxidant defence systems to protect themselves against the toxic effects of O2 (see Chapter 1). The term ‘ antioxidant’ is widely used in newspapers, magazines, and the scientific literature, but it is rarely defined. Often it is used to refer only to antioxidants than can scavenge radicals, such as superoxide dismutase, vitamin E, and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Let us explore this further.