Abstract

CURRENT STATUS AND FUTURE POTENTIAL OF HERBAL RADIOPROTECTANTS

*Kumud Bala, Piyush Saini Deepshikha Pande Katare

ABSTRACT

Radiation is one of the prevalent exogenous factors that have deteriorating effects on human life. There are various types of radiations and only some of them can be detected easily and are generated in controlled environment having all the necessary safety measures, but most of the radiations are undetected to the humans and there are no safety measures present as such to protect the living organisms from them. Radiation exposure to the biological system can lead to damaging effects such as DNA damage, protein damage and lipids peroxidation, if severe enough, it may result in the damage of hematopoietic, gastrointestinal , reproductive and central nervous system subject to the radiation dose. There have been incidents of even genetic defects in the offspring’s, whose parents were exposed severely to the radiation. In some cases radiation therapy is also used as a form of treatment as in case of cancer treatments, which can damage the normal living cells and have other associated side effects. Hence, it is an utmost need to overcome the side effects of the radiation or to reduce it to a certain level that it does not provide any serious harm to the exposed person. Considering this as the goal, present study is focused on developing natural radioprotectant which will be efficient in protecting biological systems from radiation induced damage.

Keywords: DNA damage, protein damage and lipids peroxidation.