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Natural Antioxidants Protect Neurons in Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease

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Abstract

“Modern” medicine and pharmacology require an effective medical drug with a single compound for a specific disease. This seams very scientific but usually has unavoidable side effects. For example, the chemical therapy to cancer can totally damage the immunological ability of the patient leading to death early than non-treatment. On the other hand, natural antioxidant drugs not only can cure the disease but also can enhance the immunological ability of the patient leading to healthier though they usually have several compounds or a mixture. For the degenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD), natural antioxidant drugs are suitable drugs, because the pathogenesis of these diseases is complex with many targets and pathways. These effects are more evidence when the clinic trial is for long term treatment. The author reviews the studies on the protecting effects of natural antioxidants on neurons in neurodegenerative diseases, especially summarized the results about protective effect of green tea polyphenols on neurons against apoptosis of cellular and animal PD models, and of genestine and nicotine on neurons against Aβ—induced apoptosis of hippocampal neuronal and transgenic mouse AD models.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (29935080), 973(2006CB500706), Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the E-Institutes of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (Project No. E-04010). I sincerely thank professor Jiankang Liu for his suggestions and comments to this paper.

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Academia Sinica, 15 Datun Road, Chaoyang District, 100101, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Baolu Zhao

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Special issue in honor of Dr. Akitane Mori.

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Zhao, B. Natural Antioxidants Protect Neurons in Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. Neurochem Res 34, 630–638 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-008-9900-9

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