THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OXIDATIVE STRESS IN THE PATHOGENESIS OF CHRONIC DISEASES: A NARRATIVE REVIEV WITH SYSTEMATIC SEARCH ELEMENTS
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Oxidative stress, resulting from an imbalance between reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidant defenses, is a central mechanism implicated in the development of cardiovascular, metabolic, neurodegenerative, pulmonary, and oncological diseases. Despite decades of research, the clinical translation of antioxidant strategies remains controversial, with large trials producing inconsistent results and leaving key questions unresolved. Aims: This narrative review aimed to synthesize current evidence on the role of oxidative stress in chronic disease pathogenesis, to elucidate underlying molecular mechanisms, to critically assess the effectiveness of antioxidant and lifestyle interventions, and to identify unresolved controversies, knowledge gaps, and future research priorities. Methods: A narrative literature review with systematic search elements was performed in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science for studies published between January 2010 and July 2025. From 300 records initially identified, 71 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. Data were extracted on disease associations, oxidative stress pathways, therapeutic and lifestyle interventions, and clinical outcomes. The methodological quality of included studies was assessed using adapted Newcastle–Ottawa and AMSTAR-2 criteria. Results: Evidence supports oxidative stress as a unifying but heterogeneous mechanism across chronic diseases. Strong associations are documented in cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, whereas findings in neurodegeneration and cancer remain inconsistent. Antioxidant supplementation demonstrates biological plausibility in preclinical models but has yielded conflicting clinical outcomes due to poor bioavailability, population heterogeneity, and methodological limitations. Lifestyle interventions, including dietary modification, physical activity, and smoking cessation, consistently reduce oxidative stress markers and remain the most evidence-based strategies. Novel therapeutic approaches, such as mitochondria-targeted antioxidants, gene therapy, and nanotechnology-based delivery systems, are promising but lack validation in large-scale clinical studies. Conclusions: Oxidative stress is a well-established pathogenic factor across chronic diseases, but its therapeutic modulation remains unproven in clinical practice. Current antioxidant therapies cannot be recommended for routine use, whereas lifestyle modifications provide reproducible benefits. Future research should focus on standardized biomarkers, rigorously designed long-term clinical trials, and precision strategies to establish the clinical relevance of oxidative stress management.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.020 | 0.065 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.010 | 0.008 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.036 | 0.027 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.011 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".