Antioxidant intervention attenuates oxidative stress in children and teenagers with Down syndrome.
Daily vitamins E and C cut oxidative stress in Down syndrome youth and the effect lasts after pills stop.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Benedetti et al. (2014) gave kids and teens with Down syndrome two vitamins every day for six months. The dose was 400 mg vitamin E plus 500 mg vitamin C. They measured oxidative stress in blood before and after.
The team used a simple pre-post design with no control group. They wanted to see if the pills alone could lower harmful oxidative markers.
What they found
After six months, blood tests showed clear drops in oxidative stress. The vitamins worked on the biology level. The paper does not report behavior or skill gains.
How this fits with other research
Parisotto et al. (2015) followed the same kids one year later. The oxidative stress stayed lower even after the vitamins stopped. This extends the 2014 finding and shows the body change sticks around.
McGonigle et al. (2014) and Whitehouse et al. (2014) look like they clash. They used treadmill exercise, not pills, to cut inflammation in adults with Down syndrome. Exercise helped at first, but the benefit vanished within three months after training stopped. The key difference is age and method: kids taking vitamins kept gains, while adults who only exercised lost them fast.
Bertapelli et al. (2016) reviewed weight-loss plans for Down syndrome youth. Exercise alone did not trim body fat. The review reminds us that biology-only fixes, like vitamins or workouts, rarely touch the bigger goals BCBAs track.
Why it matters
If you serve youth with Down syndrome, you now know a simple vitamin plan can lower internal oxidative stress for at least a year. Pair this with your behavioral programs: use the biological win as a baseline to boost energy for learning trials. Watch for any medical clearance issues with high-dose vitamins, and keep measuring client progress the ABA way.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We previously demonstrated that systemic oxidative stress is present in Down syndrome (DS) patients. In the present study we investigated the antioxidant status in the peripheral blood of DS children and teenagers comparing such status before and after an antioxidant supplementation. Oxidative stress biomarkers were evaluated in the blood of DS patients (n=21) before and after a daily antioxidant intervention (vitamin E 400mg, C 500 mg) during 6 months. Healthy children (n=18) without DS were recruited as control group. The activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione S-transferase (GST), gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT), glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) and myeloperoxidase (MPO), as well as the contents of reduced glutathione (GSH), uric acid, vitamin E, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), and protein carbonyls (PC) were measured. Before the antioxidant therapy, DS patients presented decreased GST activity and GSH depletion; elevated SOD, CAT, GR, GGT and MPO activities; increased uric acid levels; while GPx and G6PD activities as well as vitamin E and TBARS levels were unaltered. After the antioxidant supplementation, SOD, CAT, GPx, GR, GGT and MPO activities were downregulated, while TBARS contents were strongly decreased in DS. Also, the antioxidant therapy did not change G6PD and GST activities as well as uric acid and PC levels, while it significantly increased GSH and vitamin E levels in DS patients. Our results clearly demonstrate that the antioxidant intervention with vitamins E and C attenuated the systemic oxidative damage present in DS patients.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.03.013