Neuroprotective effect of antioxidant compounds

Neurodegenerative diseases affect millions of individuals worldwide. It has been estimated that the number of patients affected by neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), Huntington’s disease (HD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), stroke and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) will increase over time, due to the growing size of the elderly population (Willis, 2015). Currently AD affect 5.3 million people in the US and ~44 million people worldwide; PD affect 1.0 million people in the US and 7–10 million people worldwide; HD affect 30,000 people in the US and 100,000 people worldwide; TBI affect 1.4 million people in the US and 5.3 million people worldwide; Stroke affect 795,000 people in the US and 15.0 million people worldwide and finally ALS affect 12,000–30,000 people in the US and 450,000 people worldwide. Although a number of FDA approved drugs for these diseases have been used, they have been shown to produce diverse side effects and yield relatively modest benefits. Therefore, to surpass these limitations of current therapeutics, extensive research and development are underway to find drugs that are effective with less or no undesirable side effects.