From The February 2001 Issue of Nutrition Science News

Antioxidants Cull Mad Cow Disease

by Jack Challem

Europeans, particularly the French, are mad about mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and its human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Yet research dating back to 1996 suggests that antioxidants may prevent or slow the progression of aberrant proteins such as prions that cause such brain-destroying diseases.

In fact, the latest study reports that the mineral copper, part of the antioxidant superoxide dismutase, might hinder the advancement of prion disease by quenching free radicals. Other cell-culture research suggests that both vitamin E and N-acetylcysteine (NAC) are similarly beneficial. Perhaps those panicking about mad cow disease should have an extra glass of antioxidant-rich red wine.

Jack Challem, known as The Nutrition Reporter™, has been writing about vitamin research for 25 years and is the author of Syndrome X: The Complete Nutritional Program to Prevent and Reverse Insulin Resistance (Wiley, 2000).

References

1. Wong BS, et al. Prion disease: a loss of antioxidant function. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 2000;275:248-52.

2. Challem J. Oxidative stress and prion disease. J Orthomolecular Med 1997;12:245.