Total Antioxidant Capacity: a biomarker in biomedical and nutritional studies

When antioxidant defenses are weakened, body cells and tissues become more prone to develop dysfunction and/or disease. Then, the maintenance of adequate antioxidant levels, but not overdosage, is essential to prevent or even manage a great number of disease conditions. This review strongly describes and discusses the use of TAC, total antioxidant capacity test, as a biomarker of disease in biochemistry, medicine, food and nutritional sciences. In many different pathophysiological conditions (heart and vascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, neurological and psychiatric disorders, renal disorders and lung diseases), TAC could be a reliable biomarker of diagnostics and prognostics, although several cautions for its use should be carefully done (choice of apropriate method, use of other antioxidant biomarkers such as cell antioxidants, genetic antioxidant-response elements (ARE) or antioxidant vitamins, and use of valuable oxidative/nitrosative biomarkers). TAC could be useful to evaluate nutritional interventions with TAC-rich foods on disease risk and prevention, including anti-aging strategies.

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