Clinicopathologic entities that are associated with disseminated intravascular coagulation, in our view, represent more advanced stages of the same process. While disseminated intravascular clotting in many acute and chronic disorders has been thoroughly studied, the occurrence and extent of such phenomena in the insidious development of molecular and cellular lesions that lead to IHD, to our knowledge, has not been previously recognized. We include below brief comments about some fundamental aspects of the phenomenon of oxidation as a framework for our discussion of oxidative coagulopathy. Thus, spontaneity of oxidation in nature is the natural phenomenon that provides the core mechanism of molecular injury in biology. Stated in another way, spontaneity of oxidation is nature's grand scheme to assure that no oxygen-utilizing form of life remains immune to the immutable law of oxidative death.
Oxidation plays a similar role in the decay of inanimate matter as well.
Reduction, the other side of the redox equation of life, requires expenditure of energy. A simple analogy may be used to answer this question. A boy is playing with a ball attached to a string. He keeps the ball flying in an orbit around him by moving his extended arm in a circle above his head. In this circumstance, the kinetic energy of the ball seeks to move the ball away from the boy, but it is counterbalanced by the pull of the string on it so that the ball stays in a circular orbit.