[en] Human beings are exposed to ionizing and non ionizing radiation from natural as well as manmade sources. Ionizing radiations are one of the predominant exogenous factors that have deleterious consequences to human life. Exposure to ionizing radiations damages the hematopoietic, gastrointestinal or central nervous systems, depending on radiation dose. Hence, there is an urgent need to prevent such deleterious effects caused due to ionizing radiations. Chemical protection involves the use of synthetic and natural products against planned radiation exposure. Medicinal plants are rich in antioxidants and their chemical constituents may be the potential source for radioprotective agents. Linum usitatissimum plant (family: Linaceae), source of flaxseed oil (FSO), is well known for its anticarcinogenic, antidiabetic, cardioprotector, antiulcer properties owing to the presence of various phytochemicals. The present study has been focused to find out the preventive action of flaxseed oil against radiation induced hematological and biochemical lesions in mammals. For this purpose, FSO (50μL/animal/day) was orally administered to Swiss albino mice for five days, prior to 6 Gy gamma radiation exposure. The animals were sacrificed on 1^st, 3^rd, 7^th, 15^th and 30^th day after irradiation. Radiation treated control group exhibited significant reduction in erythrocytes count, hemoglobin content, hematocrit value and total WBC count in peripheral blood. In contrast, pretreatment with FSO significantly increased all these blood constituents. Further, the antioxidant parameters such as reduced glutathione, catalase, and superoxide dismutase showed a significant elevation in FSO pretreated group which were reduced in irradiated control group. Similarly, radiation induced increase lipid peroxidation in blood was significantly inhibited after FSO treatment. The present results indicate that the flaxseed oil has the ability to debilitate the radiation induced adverse alterations in the peripheral blood throughout the experiment in mammals. (author)