Does exposure to radiation accumulate during a lifetime or does it wear off after a certain amount of time?
I was reading this article: http://coloncancer.about.com/od/environment/a/RadiationExp.htm and was wondering about the part that says "The average American receives an effective dose of approximately 3 mSv of radiation each year from radon, rocks, outer space, soil, electronics, and airplane travel." Does this 3 mSv per year add up over a lifetime? For example, would a 30 year old have a total of about 90 mSv (3 x 30), or when they say something like "And liver cancer can be caused by exposure to less than 100 mSv of radiation." do they mean you have to get that 100mSv all in one dose, and does it have to be directly exposed to the liver? I hope this question isn't too confusing, lol.
CT Scan Radiation Damage...Now What?
Our infant received a CT scan 24 months ago. The diagnosis was "minor" head injury. She did not vomit after the fall. She did not become unconscious after the fall. She was functioning fine after the short fall down 4 wooden steps. After visiting the physician from a center open on Sundays (her Pediatrician's office is closed on Sundays), my instincts told me to avoid the scan and watch her for abnormal behavior. We were not given the option of an MRI, ultra-sound, standard x-ray, observation, or any less invasive procedure. We were not explained the extent of risk involved in CT brain scans to an infant's head by the physician. It was not until after her scan that we were able to research, to our HORROR, the lifetime risks of CT brain scans to an infants head and when it is and when it is not necessary to prescribe such scans. It is UNTRUE that one dose of ionizing radiation from a CT scan on an infant is relatively safe. It is now estimated, from a recent study completed at UCSF (see link below) that 1 in 60 female children, aged 18 months or younger receiving a single CT scan will die as a direct result from the CT scan. Now what do we do? Aside from attempting to avoid future ionizing radiation what can we do to help remove free radicals and DNA damage from this? http://www.ucsf.edu/science-cafe/articles/new-research-on-ct-radiation-exposures-risks-fuels-growing-concern/ http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20100226/Smith-Bindman.Testimony.pdf http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/health/CT-Scan-Radiation-Draws-more-Concern-83150382.html http://www.psa-rising.com/eatingwell/veggies-dna2006.htmlhttp://www.calharvest.com/nutr.dna.html
Can radiation cause mutations and/or deformities in humans?
Oh yeah. Big time. Ionizing radiation like gamma rays, X-rays, alpha/beta particle emissions cause double strand breaks in your DNA (imagine taking the traditional double-helix structure of DNA and breaking it over your knee). This happens all the time in our bodies due to cosmic radiation (gamma rays from space are flying through you hundreds of times a second...or more). Normally, your body can handle this amount of DNA damage with repair enzymes in your cells. People with mutations in these enzymes (like Xeroderma pigmentosa and ataxia telangiactasia) do not have the same ability as the rest of use to repair our DNA damage. As a result, they have to protect themselves from the sun because it does tremendous damage to them. Being exposed to higher doses of radiation increases your chance of mutation because not only are you increasing your overall chance of your DNA being repaired imperfectly (nothing is perfect and chance always catches up with you if it's given the opportunity), but it can begin to do damage faster than your normal cells can keep up. This is particularly damaging in dividing cells because those mutations can be conferred to every cell that arises from cell division of that cell. When enough mutations have accumulated in key genes, this can cause cancer.
Prius, radiation, cancer?
I am looking to buy a Prius soon. However, a friend of mine said they could cause cancer because of the "radiation" or "electromagnetism" or whatever he said. I dont know anything about radiation and cancer, and I would like those who have owned Priuses for a good while to tell me if they have felt any ill effects or anything. I really want to buy this car because I want to lessen my impact on the environment. I already use eco-friendly cleaners from Whole Foods Market to clean my house. Anyway, serious answers please.
Are X-Rays riskier than background radiation because they shoot larger doses in a few seconds into one area against being slowly spread out over the body?
No, its all about the total radiation our body gets. Besides, present day thinking factors in our body’s ability to repair the damage suffered also from radiation.Here is an overview comparing radiation doses from different radiological exams compared to the all present background radiation http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/...
Will 150 rads of radiation kill a person?
LD50 The dose that would kill 50% of people is around 400 rads. LD100 is a lot higher around 1000 rads so 150 rads should not kill you. It will cause the recipient damage and increase the chance of them getting cancer and having children with birth defects. It could kill but it is likely the people who are killed by it would already be weak from infection or disease and the cumilitave effect kills them. Other contributing factors to how damaging that 150 rads will be are how long it took you to reviece this level of radiation if it is over days or weeks is better than recieving it in a few seconds and wheter is was focused or uniformly spread over the entire body where focused is a lot worse especially if at vital organs like brain or lungs. I guess i am saying depending on how you choose to do it you can make it lethal so a gamma beam imparts 150 rads of radiation into someones brain over 1 second i dont think they will be walking for long after that 150 rads of ambient radiation over a week on a healthy person and there id virtually no chance of them ending up dead.But dude do not try this 150 rads will still mess a man up in its own special way. And radiation poisoning is literally one of the nsatiest ways to die that there is. You know the phrase “That what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” that does not apply here barely surviving radiation poisoning is not going to leave you stronger.