Abstract
Detrimental health effects from ionizing radiation to living organisms is one of the key concerns identified and addressed by Radiation Protection institutions, nationally and internationally on Earth and for human spaceflight. Thus, new methods for mitigating the adverse effects of ionizing radiation are urgently needed for terrestrial health and deep space exploration. Caloric restriction and (intermittent-) fasting have been reported to elicit a variety of immediate and long-term physiological effects. The rapidly growing body of evidence of research studies investigating the effects of caloric restriction and dietary fasting points toward a multitude of benefits affecting numerous physiological systems. Therefore, a systematic review was performed to evaluate the evidence of caloric restriction and dietary fasting on the physiological response to ionizing radiation in humans and animals. All experimental studies of humans, animals, and eukaryotic cell lines available in PubMed, Cochrane library, and specialized databases were searched comparing irradiation post-caloric restriction or fasting to a non-nutritionally restricted control group on a broad range of outcomes from molecular to clinical responses. The initial search yielded 2,653 records. The final analysis included 11 studies. Most studies investigated survival rate or cancer occurrence in animals. Included studies did not reveal any benefit from pre exposure caloric restriction, except when performed with post radiation caloric restriction. However, the effects of pre-exposure fasting suggest increased resilience to ionizing radiation.
Highlights
Ionizing radiation has numerous negative biological effects on almost all living organisms [1]
Article authors were contacted through ResearchGate and email solicitations to request access to full text articles
Studies that did not allow for effect size calculations are presented in the Supplementary Material together with the meta data of all included studies
Summary
Ionizing radiation has numerous negative biological effects on almost all living organisms [1]. Greater knowledge of the mechanisms that determine the biological damage resulting from ionizing radiation is required in order to inform the development of more effective radiotherapy delivery methodologies and protective countermeasures. This is of critical importance in radiotherapy in order to reduce secondary tissue damage, while maximizing radiation delivery to cancerous tissues. Mitigating the negative effects of ionizing radiation is arguably the most significant challenge that must be addressed to facilitate human space exploration, beyond the relative protection provided by the Earth’s magnetic field in low earth orbit [3]
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