By David Liu, Ph,D, and editing by Aimee Keenan-Greene

Tuesdayday June 28, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) -- Potassium iodide can help reduce the risk of thyroid cancer if exposed to ionizing radiation.  Now a new study suggests a diet that includes flax seed supplements may help reduce the risk of dying from radiation, while also protecting against radiation-induced damage to the lungs.

Ionizing radiation, like that from an x-ray (a government-recognized carcinogen which is commonly used in hospital to diagnose and treat cancer), may also come from the environment, dysfunctional nuclear plants and detonated nuclear bombs. This type of radiation can cause cancer and ischemic vascular or coronary artery disease, with the latter less known to the public.

High doses of radiation can kill people right on the spot by inducing acute sicknesses.  It can also cause serious chronic damage to the lungs leading to "pulmonary inflammation, oxidative tissue damage and irreversible lung fibrosis," according to researchers in the study.

From the study of mice, Melpo Christofidou-Solomidou of the University of Pennsylvania found a diet supplemented with flax seed can reduce the risk of death from a high dose of x-ray if the diet regimen was initiated three weeks prior to the exposure.

The flax seed supplemented diet also helped reduce the mortality induced by the x-ray significantly, even if the irradiated mice received the diet within several weeks of exposure.

The report, published in a recent issue of BioMed Central Cancer, says flax seed had been previously known to possess antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which are expected to neutralize the effect of radiation to some degree. 

Previous research by the same group has already shown that flax seed supplements are able to prevent the damage induced by radiation when they are used as a preventative prior to the exposure. 

The current study shows flax seed may be used as a therapeutic agent post exposure to mitigate the deleterious effect of radiation.

In the study, Christofidou-Solomidou et al. gave one group of mice a diet with 10 percent flax seed either three weeks prior to a 13.5 Gy thoracic x-ray radiation therapy, or on the same day, two weeks, four weeks or six weeks after exposure to the radiation. Another group of mice as controls were given only the base diet without flax seed.  All mice were kept for 4 months.

By four months, all mice were scarified and a series of tests was conducted to investigate whether the flax seed supplementation would mitigate the effect of radiation on the death risk and the damage to the lungs.

The researchers found that of mice irradiated but not given flax seed, 60 percent died within two weeks of the radiation exposure. In comparison,  irradiated mice on the flax seed diet three weeks prior to the exposure, 12 to 30 percent died.  When given within up to 6 weeks of the exposure, the flax seed diet reduced the death risk significantly compared with those that were not given the supplement.

Also, lung OH-Proline content, an indicator of pulmonary fibrosis, was found lower in irradiated mice but treated with the flax seed diet, which is a good sign, compared with mice irradiated but untreated with the flax seed diet.  

Decreased in flax seed-treated mice were also "bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) protein and weight loss associated with radiation cachexia", the researchers reported.

Additionally, the flax seed diet helped maintain a higher blood oxygenation level and reduced levels of specific inflammatory cytokines in both irradiated and unexposed mice.

Other benefits of flax seed have been reported.  Available forms of flax seed on the market are flax seed oil, flax seed meal and flax seed pills.  It is not known what type of flax seed was used in the study.

This study may suggest people may benefit from eating flax seed weeks before heading to a hospital to receive a chest x-ray, CT scan or a radiotherapy.

Photo credit: wikipedia