Purpose: The effects of radioactivity on human health have been debated for many years but there are still important gaps that need to be addressed especially related to the effects of high natural background radiation on the local population. The beach of Meaípe, in the city of Guarapari (Brazil), emits natural gamma radiation due to the presence of monazite sands. We aimed to investigate the effects of gamma radiation doses on the biological system of wistar rats using a physical simulator of gamma radiation designed using Meaípe monazite sands.
Methods: Female Wistar rats were divided into three groups, submitted to no radiation (control group) and to continuous radiation levels, one of very high level (20 μSv h-1) and another of high level (3.6 μSv h-1). The three group of animals were monitored weekly for 3 months and at the end of the study the animals were sacrificed, and the organs were extracted and weighed for anthropometric, oxidative stress and histological evaluations.
Results: Exposure to radiation released by the monazite sands did not cause anthropometric alterations or blood pressure change in the animals. Similarly, there was no change in the quantification of ovarian follicles between the radiation groups and the control group. There was no difference in the oxidative stress quantification by the thiobarbituric acid reactive substance and advanced oxidation protein product methods in the ovaries. There were no evidenced damages in the structure of the renal tissue. It was observed the presence of granulomas in the hepatic tissue and alterations in the nuclei of the hepatocytes.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that the continuous exposure of females rats to 3.6 and 20 μSv h-1 doses of gamma radiation slightly affected the hepatic tissue, but did not alter the histological parameters in the kidneys and ovaries and oxidative stress.
Keywords: Natural gamma radiation; inflammation biological tissues; oxidative stress.