Therapeutic potential of low dose ionizing radiation against cancer, dementia, and diabetes: evidences from epidemiological, clinical, and preclinical studies

Abstract

The growing use of ionizing radiation (IR)-based diagnostic and treatment methods has been linked to increasing chronic diseases among patients and healthcare professionals. However, multiple factors such as IR dose, dose-rate, and duration of exposure influence the IR-induced chronic effects. The predicted links between low-dose ionizing radiation (LDIR) and health risks are controversial due to the non-availability of direct human studies. The studies pertaining to LDIR effects have importance in public health as exposure to background LDIR is routine. It has been anticipated that data from epidemiological and clinical reports and results of preclinical studies can resolve this controversy and help to clarify the notion of LDIR-associated health risks. Accumulating scientific literature shows reduced cancer risk, cancer-related deaths, curtailed neuro-impairments, improved neural functions, and reduced diabetes-related complications after LDIR exposure. In addition, it was found to alter evolutionarily conserved stress response pathways. However, the picture of molecular signaling pathways in LDIR responses is unclear. Besides, there is limited/no information on biomarkers of epidemiological LDIR exposure. Therefore, the present review discusses epidemiological, clinical, and preclinical studies on LDIR-induced positive effects in three chronic diseases (cancer, dementia, and diabetes) and their associated molecular mechanisms. The knowledge of LDIR response mechanisms may help to devise LDIR-based therapeutic modalities to stop disease progression. Modulation of these pathways may be helpful in developing radiation resistance among humans. However, more clinical evidence with additional biochemical, cellular, and molecular data and exploring the side effects of LDIR are the major areas of future research. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11033-022-08211-5.

Noncancer Effects of Ionizing Radiation Exposure on the Eye, the Circulatory System and beyond: Developments made since the 2011 ICRP Statement on Tissue Reactions

“…Studies on noncancer effects that occur years or decades after radiation exposure are very important not only in the field of radiation protection (where lifetime risk matters), but also in medicine (particularly after radiotherapy): given that the dose threshold for noncancer effects generally decreases with increasing post-irradiation time, the longer the post-radiotherapeutic survival of patients, the broader the spectrum of normal tissue complications of concern (196). Such viewpoints would be needed to consider whether clinical benefits outweigh risks of normal tissue complications (DCS and other life-threatening noncancer diseases as well as secondary cancer) after radiotherapy, e.g., in considering justification of radiotherapy for noncancer diseases, such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia (197)(198)(199)(200)(201)(202), refractory ventricular tachycardia (192,193), dementia and Alzheimer's disease (203)(204)(205). This section considers late occurring noncancer effects on the radar other than those on the eye and the circulatory system.…”

Cancer and Non-Cancer Effects Following Ionizing Irradiation

“…Ionizing radiation is used to treat cancer [ 1 , 2 ], but is also a carcinogen [ 3 , 4 ]. Alongside that, there has been mounting interest not only in radiotherapy for non-cancer diseases [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ], but also the non-cancer effects of radiation exposure that occur at doses or dose rates much lower than previously suggested or considered [ 9 , 10 , 11 ]. This underlines the need to consider both the cancer and non-cancer effects of medical (diagnostic or therapeutic), occupational or environmental exposure to radiation.…”

Therapeutic Role of Low Doses of Gamma Irradiation on Ehrlich Carcinoma Bearing Mice

“…Numerous authors have demonstrated that low-dose radiation (LDR) has the potential to increase the response to anticancer medications and decrease side effects by enhancing various phenomena, such as adaptive response and cell-cell communication (Chandna et al, 2002;Liu et al, 2004 andPaithankar et al, 2023). Additionally, response of the immune system (Hosoi & Sakamoto, 1993) and inhibition of metastasis subsequently have been observed with LDR (Liu, 2007).…”