ABSTRACT
I have been told, although I do not have independent confirmation, that more papers have been published in the past decade on SOD than on any other enzyme. In the early 1970s, of course, most of this work was biochemical characterization of the enzyme and the radical reactions surrounding it. In later years, however, there has been an epidemic of papers attempting to incriminate oxy radicals in pathologic processes by the finding of low (or high) levels of scavenging enzymes (especially SOD in its various forms) — low levels being interpreted as a situation where oxy radical damage would be permitted. To attempt to apply this type of reasoning, reliable measurement techniques are a necessary (but not sufficient) condition.
