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BIOENERGETICS

Letting off electrons to cope with metabolic stress

Nature Metabolism volume 2, pages 485–486 (2020)Cite this article

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Whereas textbooks depict metabolism in perfect homeostasis, disturbances occur in real life. One particularly relevant disturbance, caused by excess food and alcohol consumption and exacerbated by genetics, is reductive stress. New work by Goodman et al. identifies a biomarker of reductive stress and uses a gene therapy solution in mice. This work suggests how exercise and an accessible nutritional technology can synergistically increase catabolism and relieve reductive stress.

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Fig. 1: Fuel oxidation in excess of demand for NADH electrons drives reductive stress.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Free Radical & Radiation Biology Program, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Collin D. Heer

  2. Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Collin D. Heer & Charles Brenner

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  1. Collin D. Heer
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  2. Charles Brenner
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Correspondence to Charles Brenner.

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Competing interests

C.B. owns stock in, and is chief scientific adviser to, ChromaDex, Inc. C.D.H. declares no competing interests.

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Heer, C.D., Brenner, C. Letting off electrons to cope with metabolic stress. Nat Metab 2, 485–486 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-020-0207-8

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