From this article.
People tend to think all radiation is bad, and that it's all alike, but it's not. This isn't the first time I've heard that low doses can actually be good for you.
Thus, your wristwatch with a glow in the dark face might even be helpful to your health, or at least to your wrist's health.
This has been known for years. Medical studies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors and their descendants have shown this. If it don't kill you, it will make you better, sort of.
ReplyDeleteNow those poor bastards hit by fallout on the set of "The Conqueror" and who didn't receive proper treatment or even a good scrub-down, well, oops.
And, of course, it all depends on the person. Some people can handle huge doses of radiation and just shrug it off, others get affected in horrible ways just from small time exposures.
I remember from not that long ago that doctors declared that there was "NO" safe level of radiation. Ya gotta wonder if they ever stepped into the light of day.
ReplyDeletebrings new meaning to "catching a few rays"
ReplyDeleteThe theory is called 'radiation hormesis'..... and it is exactly that..,a THEORY. There is absolutely ZERO tangible evidence supporting this thesis. We still have a very difficult time proving Cancer A was caused by Radiation Exposure B. Virtually everything we know about radiation and it's effect on human health is by statistical models of large groups of people. We know that radiation can cause cancer but even after more than a century of radiating people we can't definitively prove whether cancer from radiation is totally a linear outcome of dose or if there is also a stochastic component. The most accurate statement we can currently make is that the higher the dose the greater the probability of cancer occurring with the probability approaching 100% (if you don't die within weeks) at a high enough dose. At very low doses...i.e. doses similar to background levels (200-500 millirads per year) you risk cellular mutation, usually resulting in cancer but on rare occasions resulting in a beneficial mutation. It's a gamble....with the odds stacked in favor of negative effects. But Hormesis' is just a theory...nothing more.
ReplyDeleteIs there anything at all that affects organisms with linear responses? Or is it just radiation? Which hasn't been proven, either, otherwise it could be said that radiation hormesis is false. The poison is in the dose.
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