Oxidative stress status and its relation to nutrition of health care providers exposed to ionizing radiation at Ain shams university hospitals

Abstract

One of the most important occupational exposures that can cause oxidative stress is ionizing radiation. Diet composition can influence oxidative damage power and antioxidant mechanism. Healthy nutrition (which includes antioxidants micronutrients and vitamins) may overcome the effect of low dose of IR and decrease oxidative stress. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess oxidative stress status of health care workers (HCWs) exposed to IR and to describe dietary diversity and nutritional status by nutritional screening of health care workers and to compare oxidative stress status of exposed HCWs who receive prescribed supplements with those who do not. Materials and methods: A comparative cross sectional study was conducted on 75 health care workers in Ain Shams University hospitals divided into 3 groups: group 1 (exposed to IR and doesn’t take dietary supplement (DS)), group 2 (exposed to IR and take DS) and group 3 (unexposed group). Assessments of health care workers' oxidative stress status were done for all groups by measure level of plasma malondialdehyde (MDA) level as biomarker for lipid peroxidation and to compare oxidative stress status of different groups, also nutritional status were described by using food frequency questionnaire, anthropometric measurements and hematological parameters (complete blood picture) were done for exposed and unexposed HCWs to detect hematological changes due to IR exposure. Results: The results showed that IR exposed group without DS (group 1) had the more oxidative stress status than exposed with DS (group2) and unexposed group (group 3) with significant difference (p value =0.001), while there were no significant difference of MDA measurements between group 2 and group 3 (p value=0.709). Significant change effect of some basic blood parameters as platelets, absolute, relative basophil, eosinophil, MCH and hematocrit among IR exposed workers were evident (although all hematological parameters were within normal range). Also, there were significant difference between groups as regards weekly times of cooked, fresh vegetables, fruits, milk, milk products, egg and consuming of sesame, green tea, red tea and coffee, complete grains, PUSFA, TFA, and saturated fatty acids (SF). Healthy diet as plenty of fresh fruits significantly improve total score of oxidative stress (OS), while unhealthy nutrition as highly processed food significantly increased it. Trans fatty acids (TFA) has positive association with total score of OS, while SF has negative association with it but with no significant value. Conclusion and recommendations: Exposure to IR plus un healthy nutrition incorporates to increase oxidative stress status, while healthy nutrition especially fresh fruits decreases it, which raised the attention to provide healthy nutrition with supplement to overcome this oxidative stress and effect of low dose of ionizing radiation and prevent more diseases due to that OS and be more healthier.