Flaxseed may guard healthy tissues and organs from the harmful effects of radiation, according to researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study demonstrated that a diet of flaxseed given to mice protected lung tissues before exposure to radiation and caused a noticeable reduction in damage after exposure occurred.
Study findings were based on several separate experiments. These experiments included feeding one group of mice a diet supplemented with 10% flaxseed either 3 weeks before a dose of x-ray radiation to the thorax or 2, 4, or 6 weeks after radiation exposure. A control group subjected to the same amount of radiation was provided an isocaloric control diet that did not include the flaxseed supplement. After 4 months, only 40% of the control group survived. Of the animals that received the flaxseed supplement, 70% to 88% survived.
Principal investigator Melpo Christofidou-Solomidou, PhD, research associate professor of the Medicine, Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Division, and her colleagues found there were substantial benefits from the flaxseed diet whether it was provided before or after the dose of radiation. The mice that were fed flaxseed exhibited many positive outcomes, including:
· Higher survival rates
· Mitigation of radiation pneumonitis
· Increased blood oxygenation levels
· Higher body weights
· Lower pro-inflammatory cytokine levels
· Greatly reduced pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis
Researchers were encouraged to find a reduction in pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis because lung fibrosis is essentially untreatable. In this study, the flaxseed greatly reduced fibrosis and also protected healthy tissues after radiation damage was already present.
Although flaxseed is known to be an antioxidant and an anti-inflammatory, this study illustrated that flaxseed has potential as “a mitigator and protector against radiation pneumonopathy,” according to Dr Christofidou-Solomidou.