Revision 1
March 19, 1998
by Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc.,
Edited by J. Muckerheide

1.7
Nutrition & Health

"Radon balneology for some diseases, especially rheumatoid arthritis have been carried out up till now. Successful treatment of the rheumatoid arthritis with SOD administration has been reported. These suggest that the radonexposure might be related to the possible enhancement of SOD activity. Although there are several reports that x-ray irradiation can influence the SOD activity in rat’s cerebrum and other tissues, there is not enough information related to effects of radon inhalation on SOD activity."

"Male Wistar rats aged about 30 weeks were exposed to radon concenrations in the ranges of 1000-5000 kBq/m and 400-1600 kBq/m³. The duration of the exposure was 4 hour and 16 hour. SOD activity in blood, livers, spleens and kidneys was assayed..."

Figure 2

"Results of experiment for 4 hour radon exposure are shown in Fig.2. SOD activities in liver and kidney after 4 hour radon exposure increased considerably with the increase of radon concentration up to 3000 kBq/m³ and then decrease at radon concentration of 5000 kBq/m³. SOD activity in spleen was enhanced slightly. Whereas the activities in liver, kidney and spleen decreased significantly after 16 hour radon exposure at all concentration exposed (Data is not shown)... The relative SOD activity to the control group after 4 hour and 16 hour radon exposures at 12000 kBq m³ hr (integrated radon concentration) is shown in Fig. 3."

Figure 3

"The enhancement in SOD activity agreed with previous studies with x-ray exposures. However, doses in the x-ray experiments may be far greater (in the order of Gy) than the radon exposure. There may be some problems in the estimate of doses from radon exposure."

"Another difference between x-ray experiments and the radon exposure is the duration of irradiation. All x-ray irradiations were within short periods, while radon exposures were 4 and 16 hour. The reason for the difference may be related to complicated mechanism including the process of SOD production."