Despite clear effects of the tart cherry juice of improving
resistance to oxidative stress, the significance of this improvement
to changes in long-term morbidity and mortality of older
subjects remains to be determined. To date, there have been no
long-term studies to our knowledge examining the association
between the capacity to resist acute oxidative injury and life span
or better clinical outcomes. However, several lines of evidence
from animal studies suggest that maintaining the ability to
upregulate antioxidant responses to resist oxidative damage is
critical. First, upregulation of antioxidant response genes in
response to oxidants is evolutionarily conserved across a broad
spectrum of organisms from prokaryotes to humans. Second, the
ability to upregulate antioxidant responses upon exposure to
oxidants decreases with age in the model organism Caenorhabditis
elegans and the failure of aged worms to upregulate
antioxidant response genes results in significantly higher mortality
upon exposure to oxidants (28). Third, a number of
interventions that increase lifespan in animal models also act to
increase expression of antioxidant genes.