Free radical theory of aging: dietary implications

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Abstract
Changes in biological systems leading ultimately to death can be viewed as being due to a basic aging process(es) on which disease states are superimposed and intertwined. These degradative changes may be produced, at least in part, by more-or-less random endogenous free radical reactions. The free radical reaction inhibitors, 2-mercaptoethylamine hydrochloride and butylated hydroxytoluene, were found to significantly increase the average age at death of mice. The increased average life span in the case of the AKR and C3H mice may have been due in part to an inhibiting effect of 2-MEA on neoplasia induction, whereas the beneficial effect of BHT in LAF1 mice was probably due partly to an inhibition of amyloid formation. It is suggested that the addition of one or more free radical reaction inhibitors to nutritionally adequate and acceptable natural diets, selected to minimize the intake of substances that might reasonably be expected to participate significantly in random in vivo free radical reactions, may increase the average age at death of man by 7 or more years with accompanying increases in the years of useful, healthy life.