The Natural Protective Elements of the Central Nervous System and Therapeutic Approaches For Oxidative Stress

The readers of Erciyes Medical Journal will find a well-designed and -planned original article in this issue (1). This study assessed the effects of regular physical exercise and coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) supplementation on brain superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and glutathione (GSH) levels, which are the enzymatic and non-enzymatic key elements of the antioxidant defense system of the central nervous system (CNS) (1). The authors randomly assigned eight groups of rats as follows: untrained, trained, untrained exhausted, trained exhausted, untrained plus CoQ10, trained plus CoQ10, untrained exhausted plus CoQ10 and trained exhausted plus CoQ10. What they found was that exhaustive exercise causes the GSH level to decrease in the control group whereas it increases in the untrained and trained exhausted plus CoQ10 groups. Swimming training led to increase in SOD activity in the brain but in the exhausted group the SOD activity did not change. On the other hand, CoQ10 supplementation increased SOD activity in the control group whereas decreased in the trained group. The authors concluded that regular exercise alone might trigger the natural antioxidant defense system individually in the brain (1).