Antimutagenic effects of vitamin e on oncology and non oncology hospital nurses by comet assay

Abstract

Vitamin E is a natural antioxidant and its most common biologically active form is ?-tocopherol. The antiproliferative effects of ?-tocopherol have been previously demonstrated. In this study the antimutagenic effects of vitamin E on oncology and non oncology hospital nurses was investigated. A total of 138 female nurses from oncology and non oncology hospitals participated in the study. They received 200 mg/day vitamin E for 2 weeks. The urine samples before and after intake of vitamin E were collected and the nucleus of urothelial cells were evaluated with comet assay. The length of epithelial cells nuclei correlated with increased fracture rate of DNA. Nucleolus length of urine epithelial cells of all nursing staff before and after vitamin E treatment were measured and the data were evaluated by student t-test and SPSS. Our study showed that 20% of nursing staff have apoptosis and DNA fracture in the nucleolus of their urine epithelial cells and DNA damage in the urothelial cells of exposed nurses was significantly higher than the control group (P<0.05). The antimutagenic activity of vitamin E had significant effects on oncology hospital nurses effectively in repairing DNA damage and decreasing their nucleus length in urine epithelial cells. We propose that the higher therapeutic doses of vitamin E and increasing the length of treatment period will be effective against DNA strand breakage and may have more effect on oncology nurses. é Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart.