Biochemical society symposia no. 61 free radicals and oxidative stress: environment, drugs and food additives

Biochemical society symposia no. 61 free radicals and oxidative stress: environment, drugs and food additives

Book Reviews 1013 PII S0891-5849(96)00298-5 BIOCHEMICAL S O C I E T Y S Y M P O S I A N O . 61 FREE RADICALS AND OXIDATIVE STRESS: ENVIRONMENT, DRUG...

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Book Reviews

1013

PII S0891-5849(96)00298-5 BIOCHEMICAL S O C I E T Y S Y M P O S I A N O . 61 FREE RADICALS AND OXIDATIVE STRESS: ENVIRONMENT, DRUGS AND FOOD ADDITIVES C. RICE-EVANS, B. HALLIWELL,G. G. LUNT, EDITORS Portland Press, London, UK 276 pp., 1995. Price: $90.00 US

Reviewed by W. A. Pryor BiodynamicsInstitute, LouisianaState University,Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA

This volume is the result of one of the annual symposia held at the Meeting of the Biochemical Society in December 1994 at the University of Sussex in Brighton in the UK. Judging from this volume, this must have been a truly superior symposium, since the book that has resulted is excellent in every way. It has chapters on a wide variety of subjects, by acknowledged experts, and the book is very attractively done and rather uniformly edited. The chapters start with an introduction by K. J. A. Davies. Chapter 2, by H. Rubbo, M. Tarpey, and B. A. Freeman, involves nitric oxide biochemistry and biology, and Chapter 3, by R. M. Tyrrell, discusses oxidative stress arising from UV radiation to skin. Chapter 4, by B. Kalyanaraman, treats thiyl radicals, and Chapter 5, by L. J. Marnett and A. L. Wilcox, discusses the interesting system of alkoxyl radicals that has been studied by the Mamett group. In Chapter 6, B. Halliwell gives a review of the characterization of antioxidants and, in Chapter 7, C. RiceEvans, in a very interesting contribution, discusses plant polyphenols and their antioxidant properties. In Chapter 8, N. I. Krinsky covers carotenoids and presents a very useful table that summarizes all of the data on the antioxidant (or non-antioxidant) effects of/3carotene in LDL. S. Singh et al. discuss iron chelators in Chapter 9, and C. A. O'Neill et al. discuss ozone and nitrogen

dioxide chemistry and biology in Chapter 10. These UC Davis workers find no evidence for synergy between ozone and nitrogen dioxide in their studies of plasma oxidation. Air pollutants and the synergistic effects of sulfite are discussed by S. Hippeli and E. F. Elstner in Chapter 11. Myeloperoxidase is discussed in Chapter 12 by J. P. Uetrecht, and one-electron reduction of nitrogen compounds is treated in Chapter 13 by P. Wardman et al. Side effects of drugs used to treat rheumatoid arthritis are discussed in Chapter 14 by P. J. Evans and B. Halliwell, and tamoxifen as an antioxidant is covered by H. Wiseman in Chapter 15. Antioxidant agents in foods are discussed in Chapter 16 by E. E. Eriksson and A. Na, and in food packaging by G. Scott in Chapter 17. Free radicals arising from the irradiation of food are discussed in Chapter 18 by N. J. F. Dodd, and atherogenic and anti-atherogenic factors in the diet by P. B. Addis et al. in the final chapter. The book includes a short subject index. Each of the chapters averages about 15 pages in length, allowing the various experts to present both a review and some new data from their own laboratories. I found this book to be of unusual interest, with some of the chapters providing a very useful overview of the field of the experts. This attractive book could be used as a set of advanced readings in a graduate course on oxidants in biology.