How Radon Affects the Body
“The incidence of breast cancer is huge in relation to lung cancer, but 90 percent of people with breast cancer survive, where about 92 percent of people with lung cancer die, most of them within two years of diagnosis. In fact, lung cancer kills more Americans than breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer combined”.
(Dr. Cheryl Healton, President & CEO, American Legacy Foundation Aug. 10, 2005)
The risks to human health from ionizing radiation are well known. (X-rays are ionizing radiation which is why you protect yourself from excessive exposure by wearing a lead shield). Radon gas is by far the largest source of naturally occurring ionizing radiation
Radioactive elements are unstable. These elements spontaneously change into another element in a decay process trying to be come stable. When it changes from one element into another, it emits a pulse of radiation in three different forms: Alpha, Gamma and Beta particles. If the element that it changes into is also unstable, it will undergo another spontaneous radioactive decay, emitting another radioactive pulse and changing into yet another element.
An atom that begins as uranium, decays into radium, then decays into radon and continues through a series of decays and it eventually changes into ordinary lead and remains lead, a stable element.
It is this decay process that presents the health problems for humans. When a radon atom decays, it becomes electrostatically charged and “sticks” to the lining of the lungs or to small particulate which is suspended in the air (i.e., the things you see when sunlight comes streaming into the room). These particles with attached radon decay products can then be inhaled. These decay products have relatively short half lives and emit large amounts of radiation in a short period of time.
When this decay happens in the lungs, the particles strike lung cells after they are ejected from the nucleus. The Alpha particles, which are quite large by subatomic standards, do considerable damage. Three scenarios can occur:
• A cell that is struck dies, which is not a problem as the lung cells are constantly regenerating.
• The lung cell does not die, but is damaged and repairs itself.
• A cell is damaged and cannot repair itself. This mutated/damaged cell proliferates and creates intermediate cells that have sustained some degree of DNA damage. This increases the pool of cells available for the development of cancer. This damage to DNA in lung cells can occur at any exposure level to radon.
Not everyone exposed to elevated levels of radon will develop lung cancer. Some people who do not smoke and do not live in houses with elevated levels of radon will develop lung cancer. The amount of time between exposure and the onset of disease may be many years.
Smoking combined with radon exposure is an especially serious health risk. You can reduce your risk of lung cancer by stopping smoking and lowering the radon level in your house.
