Diet nutraceuticals: can the biooxidant content in food help in preventing neurodegenerative diseases?”

Neurodegenerative diseases are becoming more frequent and an economical problem to the health-care system1. The current pharmacotherapy of such kind of diseases is predominantly symptomatic, and the news that the major pharmaceutical companies have decided to abandon the research related to drugs for the treatment of these diseases has thrown into despair both patients and researchers. It has been widely shown that damaging effects of oxidative stress and neuronal chronic neuroinflammation have been concerned with the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease (PD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)1,2. Nowadays, the nutritional neuroscience studies are quickly rising, so the scientific community, focused on the study of neurodegenerative diseases, is increasingly converging on what impact the diet can have in fighting the onset of these pathologies. So, it has become extremely important the approach to a supportive therapy and nutritive sustenance in the form of complex foods and nutraceuticals. In fact, lots of studies have been led to identify the ideal nutritional compound in the food in which it is contained1. The present study is mainly focused on the impact of food biooxidant content to help to prevent or delay the symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases or used in co-therapy. Keywords: Neurodegenerative diseases, oxidative stress, diet, nutritional neuroscience.