Study of Oxidants and Antioxidants in Addicts

Context: This study was a systematic review that aimed to extract published articles regarding oxidant and antioxidants status in opium addiction by searching in PubMed, Google Scholar engine, SID, and Magiran databases.
Evidence Acquisition: Sixty-six published articles were investigated in this review, which were selected from studies among the Iranian society and other societies from 1976 to 2015. All articles published in different fields of descriptive-analytical, experimental, and interventional studies were considered.
Several studies have shown that with increased production of free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS), the enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants such as glutathione (GSH) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase activities, and also the concentration of vitamins A, E, C and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) decrease in opium addiction. Increased atherogenic indexes such as Low density lipoprotein/high density lipoprotein (LDL/HDL) ratio and malondialdehyde (MDA) may contribute to the increased risk of cardiovascular disease. However, it has also increased other markers of oxidative stress including: isoprostanes, 8-oxoguanine and protein carbonyl.
Oxidative stress increases in opium-addicted people. It seems that opium is capable of provoking oxidative stress and also, has harmful effects on lipid profile and antioxidant enzyme. Drug addicts were found to have antioxidant vitamin deficiency.