What are the effects of
radiation exposure on the human body? At this time, the effects of radiation
exposure on the human body are a cause for concern, because of the radiation
released from the nuclear plant in Japan
While most people have basic
knowledge about radiation and are familiar with some of the effects of
radiation exposure on the human body, they may not be aware of the long-term
effects, the future implications or the effects of different levels of
radiation exposure.
What level of radiation
exposure causes damage to the human body?
Atomicarchive.com (1) gives a brief description of what
happens to the human body when exposed to different levels of radiation.
What areas of the human body
are adversely affected?
These include the hair, brain,
thyroid, blood system, heart, gastrointestinal tract and reproductive tract.
The following information,
offers a brief synopsis of what happens to the human body at different levels
of radiation exposure.
Hair: 200 rems or higher
radiation levels result in clumping and rapid hair loss.
Brain: Brain damage occurs to
brain cells at 5000 rems or greater. Note that radiation causes damage to nerve
cells and small blood vessels, which results in seizures and immediate death.
Thyroid: Radioactive iodine can
destroy all or part of the thyroid gland; but the effects diminish with
potassium iodide.
Blood system: At 100 rems, the
lymphocyte cell count drops rendering a person more prone to infection. This
occurs in radiation sickness.
Heart: 1000 to 5000 rems
damages small blood vessels, leading to heart failure and death.
Gastrointestinal tract: 200
rems or more causes damage to the intestinal tract lining, which results in
nausea, bloody vomiting and diarrhea.
Reproductive tract: At 200
rems, rapidly dividing cells suffer damage. Over the long term, radiation
sickness results in sterility.
DNA and RNA: 200 rems harm DNA
and RNA. (2)
To understand this more fully,
it is important to understand the meaning of the word rem.
“The roentgen equivalent in man
(or mammal) or rem (symbol rem ) is a unit of radiation dose equivalent. It is
the product of the absorbed dose in rads and a weighting factor.” (3)
To simplify this statement, rem
is a unit of radiation. The following information will help to put this in
proper perspective.
“An acute whole-body dose of
under 50 rem is typically subclinical and will produce nothing other than blood
changes. 50 to 200 rem may cause illness but will rarely be fatal. Doses of 200
to 1,000 rem will probably cause serious illness with poor outlook at the upper
end of the range. Doses of more than 1000 rems are almost invariably fatal.”
(4)
It is important to understand
how the radiation used in the medical realm differs from the kind of exposure
that people may have with respect to the potential nuclear disaster in Japan
Are human beings at risk when
treated with radiation?
Remember that there is always
some degree of risk associated with any level of radiation exposure, but there
is a marked difference in the radiation exposure levels. To understand
radiation exposure in the medical realm more fully, let us look at what happens
when a person undergoes medical x-rays or treatment with
radiation.
“A rem is a large dose of
radiation, so the millirem (mrem), which is one thousandth of a rem, is often
used for the dosages commonly encountered, such as the amount of radiation
received from medical x-rays and background sources.” (5)
It is always important to keep
things in proper perspective, particularly when talking about radiation. Again,
being knowledgeable is preferable to being non-knowledgeable, particularly with
respect to different aspects of the effects of radiation on the human body.
2. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
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