RADIATIONS AND ALZHEIMER'S SYNDROME

RADIATIONS MAY CAUSE ALZHEIMER'S

Ionizing radiations from medical equipments,aeroplans,may cause destruction of neurons especially at hippo campus region of the brain and eventually leads to the development of Alzheimer's Disease(AD), a newer study reveals.

In elderly patients AD causes a kind of dementia which erases totally their past memories.It is estimated that dementia's global prevalence is supposed to increase in the coming eras upto 80 million patients by 2040.

Dr.Stefan J.Kempf from University of Southern Denmark says it is crucial that we investigate AD.

His research is mainly on the possible connections between radiations and memory impairments.

Hippocampus is situated in cerebral subcortical region at the mid temporal lobe.Hippocampus is the brain center for memories and orientations.Hippocampus is the first part of the brain that gets damaged in AD.

In a new study he and an inernational team of research collegues from Italy,Japan,Germany,and Denmark prove that low doses of ionizing radiation induce molecular changes in the brain that are similar to AD's symptoms.

The study has been published in Oncotarget.

Every occasions people of various ages are increasingly exposed to ionizing radiations from various sources and situations such as travelling in an airplane,working with a nuclear medical equipment,(X-ray,CT scan etc.). 

Unfortunately it is true that approximately one third of all diagnostic CT scans are scans of the head region.

According to Dr.Kempf statement all these exposures are low doses of ionizing radiations only and if they are once in a life time event then it may not be a concern.But in reality these exposes are more frequent and unavoidable as the needs of the modern times and hence it is a serious concern that because of these frequent exposures we do not know how much the accumulations of these frequent radiations and their effects.

A recent study shown that even a smaller dose of radiation supplied by a few CT scan examination can damage neorons of cognitive regions of the brain.

It has been proved by the research study that there are molecular damages by low dose ionizing radiations at the hippocampus of the mice.

The researches induced changes in the hippocampus by two kinds of chronic low doses of ionizing radiation treatments.The mice were exposed to cumulative doses of 0.3Gy or 6.0Gy given at low dose rate of 1mGy over 24 hrs or 20 mGy over 24 hrs for 300 days 

Both these rates are capable of inducing molecular changes similar to AD.

When a patient undergoes head scan,the dose varies between 20 to 100 mGy.and last for about one minute.

When a person flies in an airplan he or she gets exposure to ionizing radiation from the space but the rates are by far smaller than the CT scan.