How much is too much radiation?

Radiation 19 October 2015

Ionising radiation can be unnerving. I hate the idea that something I can’t see could do me harm, even do enough harm to kill me! But there are plenty of other things in life that can be bad for me if I get too much of them. We’re told sitting in the sun for too long, or too many glasses of wine can cause serious damage to our bodies. I guess the question is: how much is too much? Is it like wine where there’s a comfortable middle ground of ‘’just-enough-to-make-me-mellow’’ without the overindulged ‘’oh-dear-I’m-going-to-be-sick’’?!

Unfortunately there’s no definitive answer. It’s certain that large doses of radiation can cause cancer, and middling doses cause fewer cancers. But is it a linear relationship? In other words, is no radiation the best case? Of course no radiation is impossible, with background radiation from space, the ground and even the air. But there’s growing research to show that radiation in low doses can actually be helpful. This is called Hormesis. There have been studies showing that states in the US where nuclear testing has occurred have fewer cases of lung cancer. And there is evidence that low amounts of radiation could be very beneficial for diabetic sufferers. But these are contradicted by trials showing no beneficial effect. There are still many questions as to the beneficial effects, with long term health impacted by a multitude of factors, which make this sort of study very difficult to ‘control’.

While there seems to be progress there’s no definitive answer. Ionising radiation is not without its dangers, but daily low levels of radiation shouldn’t be something we worry about.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/04/06/small-radiation/#.VeoCkBHBzGc

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2477686/

Jennifer Schofield is a PhD student at The University Of Manchester

Jennifer Schofield