Oxidative stress has been linked to a variety of medical problems, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, and aging. Drawing on the growing volume of research into the impact of oxidative stress on pathophysiological mechanisms, Donald Armstrong updates and expands his highly praised Free Radical and Antioxidant Protocols (Humana, 1998) with a collection of new and valuable methods for evaluating the perturbations in cell function resulting from increased oxidative stress. Presented in a user-friendly, step-by-step format by accomplished investigators from prestigious universities, institutes, and laboratories around the world, these readily reproducible techniques cover both free radical-derived and antioxidant biomarkers. The methodologies demonstrated include ELISA, HPLC, infrared spectroscopy, gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy, immunoblotting, electroelution fractionation, isoelectric focusing, voltammetry, and electron paramagnetic resonance imaging. Special emphasis is given to the separation of complex mixtures of plant antioxidants, soft drug design to protect from toxic oxidative metabolites, in vitro oxidation conditions, and correcting for random measurement error to improve statistical interpretation. A soon-to-be-published companion volume, Oxidants and Antioxidants: Ultrastructure and Molecular Biology Protocols (Humana, 2002), contains state-of-the-art molecular and ultrastructural methods that expand the total number of protocols to 109 assays.
Cutting-edge and highly practical, Oxidative Stress Biomarkers and Antioxidant Protocols provides many powerful new tools for detecting oxidative stress and for investigating the possibilities for therapeutic intervention monitoring in a variety of serious diseases.

The first protocols book, Free Radical and Antioxidant Protocols (1) was published in late 1998. Sections were divided into three parts, covering selected biochemical techniques for measuring oxidative stress, antioxidant (AOX) activity, and combined applications. In choosing the 40 methods to be included in that book, I realized there were considerably more of equal value than that which we could have presented in a single volume. To produce a comprehensive resource, this book and a third are being compiled to expand coverage of the field. A summary of papers (2) published on this important subject emphasizes the continuing rapid growth in oxidative stress investigations relating to our understanding of biochemical reactions, their relevance to pathophysiological mechanisms, how disease may arise, and how therapeutic intervention may be achieved(3). Although there is some overlap between the categories, the ana- sis shown below illustrates where current studies are concentrated and are almost evenly distributed between free radicals and AOX. Over the last 4 yr, there has been a 55% increase in the number of papers published in the area.