How Antioxidants Protects -

Later Free Radical Damage

It seems that the free radicals still have not completed their deadly work. It has been known for many years that as soon as hearty muscle is damaged by loss f its blood supply, millions of scavenging white blood cells ( phagocytes) move into the area to start cleaning it up so that healing and scar formation can proceed. What was not known until recently, is that this 'leucocyte infiltration', as it is known in medical jargon, is also associated with a burst of free radical production. The reason for this is that phagocytes actually use free radicals in their cleaning up operations. In the case described here, the monitoring of free radicals was continued and, sure enough, between 9 and 24 hours after the procedure there was a rise in the output of free radicals that went even higher than when the coronary artery was opened up on the first and second occasions. Such free radical production is probably necessary but there is a real possibility that it is also probably necessary, but there is a real possibility that it is also responsible for further damage to the heart. Phagocyte free radical overproduction has been investigated in several other diseases.