[kortex]

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) is loosely synonymous with "free radicals", which is more of an older term. ROS include free radical oxygen, but also other energetic non-radical species such as singlet oxygen and peroxide ions.

But yeah, your broad point is correct. Biology has several billions of years of evolutionary experience dealing with ROS and upregulates antioxidant biomolecules in response, it's way more complex than "ROS bad".

[Podgajski]

I didn’t say reactive oxygen species were bad, I said that oxidative stress is bad. And reactive Oxygen species is not an old term but nice try it in an attempt to make me look stupid.

Here are all the papers that use the terms since 2023

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2023&q=reactive+Ox...