Pre-Exposure to Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields and Induction of Radioadaptive Response in Rats Irradiated with High Doses of X-Rays

Sajad Borzoueisileh; Ali Shabestani Monfared; Seyed Mohammad Javad Mortazavi; Ebrahim Zabihi; Mehdi Pouramir; Fatemeh Niksirat; Nayer Seyfizadeh; Mohsen Shafiee

doi:10.31661/jbpe.v0i0.1271

Pre-Exposure to Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields and Induction of Radioadaptive Response in Rats Irradiated with High Doses of X-Rays

J Biomed Phys Eng. 2022 Oct 1;12(5):505-512. doi: 10.31661/jbpe.v0i0.1271. eCollection 2022 Oct.

Authors

Sajad Borzoueisileh^{1

2}, Ali Shabestani Monfared³, Seyed Mohammad Javad Mortazavi⁴, Ebrahim Zabihi⁵, Mehdi Pouramir⁵, Fatemeh Niksirat⁶, Nayer Seyfizadeh⁷, Mohsen Shafiee⁸

Affiliations

¹ MSc, Cellular and Molecular Biology Research Center, Health Research Institute, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
² MSc, Student Research Committee, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
³ PhD, Cancer Research Center, Health Research Institute, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
⁴ PhD, Department of Medical Physics and Engineering, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
⁵ PhD, Cellular and Molecular Biology Research Center, Health Research Institute, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
⁶ MSc, Department of Medical Physics Radiobiology and Radiation Protection, School of Medicine, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
⁷ PhD, Stem Cell Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
⁸ MSc, Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Yasuj University of Medical Sciences, Yasuj, Iran.

Abstract

Background: Some evidence shows that a pre-exposure to RF can mitigate the effects of subsequent exposures to high doses of ionizing radiation.

Objective: We aimed to assess the effect of a pre-exposure to non-ionizing RF radiation on survival, weight changes, food consumption, and water intake of lethally irradiated rats.

Material and methods: In this case-control study, we used a commercial mobile phone (GSM, 900/1800 MHz) as well as a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi router as the sources of pre-exposure to RF radiation. Forty-eight rats were randomly divided into six groups of control, "8 Gy X-rays", mobile phone, "mobile phone+8 Gy", Wi-Fi, and "Wi-Fi+8 Gy". Then, the survival fraction, weight loss, water, and food consumption changes were compared in different groups.

Results: The survival analysis indicated that the survival rates in all of the exposed animals ("8 Gy X-rays", "mobile phone+8 Gy", "Wi-Fi+8 Gy") were significantly lower than the control, "Wi-Fi", and "mobile phone" groups. The changes in survival rates of "mobile+8 Gy", "Wi-Fi+8 Gy", and 8 Gy alone were not statistically significant. However, food and water intake were significantly affected by exposure to both RF pre-exposures and exposure to high dose ionizing radiation.

Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, the existence of a dose window for the induction of AR can be the cause of the lack of AR in our experiment. Our findings confirm that in a similar pattern with the adaptive responses induced by pre-exposure to ionizing radiation, the induction of adaptive response by RF-pre-exposures requires a minimum level of damage to trigger adaptive phenomena.

Keywords: Cell Phone; Electromagnetic Radiation; Radioadaptive Response; Radiofrequency Radiation (RF); Survival Analysis.