Chinese scientists make discovery that could help people survive nuclear fallout

Researchers in China have developed a treatment that significantly increased the survival rates of mice exposed to acute radiation – a discovery that may one day make cancer treatment safer, or even improve survival rates in the event of nuclear war.

The study found that knocking out proteins that play an important role in the body’s immunity to cancer or viruses could significantly protect against radiation damage and help optimise cancer radiotherapy.

High doses of radiation – such as those caused by nuclear blasts or accidents, as well as radiotherapy to remove cancerous tumours – break down the body’s DNA, causing large-scale apoptosis, a type of cell death.

Nuclear radiation can trigger genetic damage that eventually leads to massive cell deaths, while cancer patients often die from gastrointestinal syndromes caused by radiotherapy.

Some studies have estimated that in the event of a nuclear war, more people would be killed by radioactive fallout rather than as an immediate result of the blast.

The atomic bombs that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the second world war killed at least 100,000, many as a result of the fallout from the blasts.

  

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