Electric field effects on guinea pig serum:: The role of free radicals

The present study was carried out to investigate the potential effects of ELF (extremely low frequency) electric field exposure on generating free radicals in guinea pigs. For this purpose, we determined thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) levels, one of the byproducts of lipid peroxidation, the changes of the activities of superoxide dismutase ( SOD), as an antioxidant enzyme, and gamma-Glutamyl transferase (GGT) as the key enzyme in GSH metabolism. Moreover, in order to investigate electric field effects on functions of organs, we measured the alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity, alkaline phosphatase ( ALP) activity, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity, total cholesterol (TC), LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, VLDL cholesterol, triglycerides (TG), urea, uric acid, creatin, glucose, and blood-urea nitrogen (BUN) in serum of guinea pigs exposed to different intensities and directions electric fields. In this study we have found that vertical and horizontal application of ELF electric fields in the range of 1.35, 1.5, and 1.8kV/m increased TBARS and SOD levels as compared to the controls (p < 0.05) and to applied electric fields of 0.3, 0.6, 0.8, and 1kV/m. On the other hand, other serum levels of some biochemical parameters that were also investigated did not undergo statistically significant changes (p > 0.05).