Relationship between increased relative oxidative stress and arteriosclerotic disease

Abstract

Oxidative stress caused by the increased production of reactive oxygen species and/or decreased efficacy of the antioxidant system is known to be associated with the progression of arteriosclerosis. The purpose of this study was to establish a new biomarker “the relative oxidative stress index” to evaluate the progression of atherosclerosis. We measured both oxidation and anti-oxidation activities simultaneously in sera from 1,073 general volunteers (610 females, 463 males; aged 19–77 years; mean 44.96 years), the former by d-ROMs (reactive oxygen metabolites-derived compounds) test and the latter by BAP (biological antioxidant potential) test using a AU480 automated analyzer. To obtain a parameter representing an overall shift toward the oxidative stress, the relative oxidation stress index was devised by the following formula: OSI = C × (d-ROMs/BMP), where C denotes a coefficient for standardization to set the mean of OSI in healthy individuals at 1.0 (C = 8.85 in this study). Additionally, we measured systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and internal carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT) in these 1,073 subjects. The present study confirmed that the group with elevated the relative oxidation stress index had higher systolic blood pressure and significantly increased internal carotid artery thickening compared to the normal group. These results suggest that evaluating the relative oxidative stress index is useful as a biomarker test for the cardiovascular system.