Monday Oct 7, 2013 (foodconsumer.org) -- A new report reminds us that exposure of the chest to radiation used in medical diagnostic tools and cancer treatment can increase risk of cardiovascular disease.   Medical professionals have known this for many decades, but not as many consumers may know this fact.Ionizing radiation such as that used in breast cancer screening and radiation therapy intended as a cancer treatment can increase risk of developing cancer such as leukemia, which is commonly known to savvy consumers.N. Mousavi and A. Nohria from Section of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, St. Joseph's Health Care Center in Toronto, ON, Canada state in the Oct 4, 2013 issue of Current Treatment Options in Cardiovascular Disease that although thoracic radiation is an effective treatments for many types of cancer, its benefit as a cancer treatment on cancer mortality is counterbalanced by an elevated risk of cardiovascular events in cancer patients. The risk associated with radiotherapy may be ignored ow downplayed because radiation induced heart disease including coronary artery disease, valvular disease, pericardial disease, and myocardial disease with systolic and diastolic dysfunction and others may manifest decades after the exposure.Some experts estimated that breast cancer screening by itself can significantly increase the risk of breast cancer!!!

Some women want breast cancer screening and still want their risk from breast cancer screening minimized.  What can these women do?  A Japanese study suggests that taking vitamin C supplements before, during and after breast cancer screening to help reduce the risk.  

That study did not monitor women for their risk from breast cancer screening.  Instead, they asked the rescue workers who helped Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant during the nuclear incident to take vitamin C in high doses either by injection or orally to see how vitamin C can affect the damage induced by radiation.   The researchers found those who took vitamin C have minimized the radiation induced damage.

Another study published in the Sept 26, 2013 issue of Journal of Radiation Research suggests that taking Korean red ginseng extract as a dietary supplement may also help lower the risk of radiation induced damage, particularly apoptosis or programmed cell deaths induced by radiation.

J. W. Chang from Department of Otolaryngology, School of Medicine, Ajou University in Suwon, Korea and colleagues tested the effectiveness of Korean red ginseng on radiation induced damage in the human keratinocyte cell line HaCaT and in an in vivo zebrafish model and found Korean red ginseng extract can help protect against a range of damages induced by radiation.

It should be noted that radiation is known to cause damage to cancer cells, that is why doctors use radiation therpy to treat cancers like breast cancer.   Taking dietary supplements that can prevent radiation induced damage may reduce the efficacy of radiotherapy intended as a cancer treatment.  Nutritonal supplements like Korean red ginseng and vitamin C can help healthy people to prevent unwanted radiation-induced damage.  Cancer patients who are receiving cancer treatment need to talk to their oncologists before taking these types of supplements.(DL)