Occupational Exposure to High-level Electric Fields and Mechanistic Effects of External Supplements

The rate of workplace-related various diseases will have arisen. Electrical workers, particularly, might be exposed to different physical, chemical, and biological agents. The respiratory system will be more vulnerable to the initiated inflammatory responses with the combined effects of these dangerous agents. The present study investigated E field-induced intracellular reactive intermediates' status and their disruptive impacts on structural molecules. Moreover, the lung tissues' antioxidant levels and preventive effects of external treated NAC and EGCG were also investigated under long-term E field exposure. The long-term exposure to 50 Hz 24kV/m vertical E Field might indirectly affect the guinea pigs' lung tissues overproducing intracellular ROS. Oxygen and nitrogen-derived reactive intermediates primarily injured lipids' and proteins' structures. With the treatments of NAC and EGCG, this disruptive effect decreased under E field exposure. In establishing safety limits for occupational exposures of electrical workers (more than 10kV/m), there is a need for further mechanistic studies on the relationships between high-level electric fields' exposures and occupational-related diseases at the molecular level.