The average person living in the United States receives about 3 millisieverts of background radiation each year, but trauma patients get an average of 40 millisieverts -- enough to raise their risks of developing cancer.

Writing in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, they said they analyzed the records of 86 patients who came to a level one trauma center over a three-month period in 2006.
More than half had been in car accidents.

These patients got many X-rays and computed tomography or CT scans, which provide a better image but which can deliver high amounts of radiation.

"Multi-trauma patients are at high risk of life-threatening injuries, which clearly justifies aggressive testing to determine the best course of treatment using all the tools available in the emergency department," Winslow said in a statement.

"However, physicians should consider the long-term risks and benefits of exposing their patients to the high levels of radiation emitted by the series of studies informally referred to as the 'pan scan,' or computed tomography of the head, neck, chest, abdomen and pelvis."

X-rays have long been known to raise the risk of cancer. Heavier doses raise the risk more, and younger people have a worse risk as they have many more years ahead of them in which to develop a tumor.

"Possible options for reducing radiation exposure may include ordering fewer repeated imaging studies, using lower dose radiological imaging techniques and using alternative imaging methods that do not use radiation, such as ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging," Winslow said.

LINK

All living organisms evolved and exist in a sea of ionizing radiation, much of which is internal. It is a general belief that low doses of ionizing radiation produce detrimental effects proportional to the effects produced by high-level radiation. Over the past decades, however, some pioneer scientists reported that low-dose ionizing radiation is not only a harmless agent but often has a beneficial or hormetic effect. That is, low-level ionizing radiation may be an essential trace energy for life, analogous to essential trace elements. It has been even suggested that about one third of all cancer deaths are preventable by increasing our low dose radiation.



http://www.angelfire.com/mo/radioadaptive/inthorm.html





I recently had a conversation with a retired X-Ray specialist physicist who claimed that radiation in low doses was actually good for you, citing the phenomena called "hormesis". Incredulous, I looked up hormesis in Google and sure enough, there are thousands of studies showing that all sorts of toxins at low doses, including radiation, produce a beneficial effect biologically.




http://www.elise.com/weblog/archives/00010...ood_for_you.php

Interesting.


Sunlight Actually Prevents Cancer

Insufficient exposure to ultraviolet radiation may be an important risk factor for cancer in Western Europe and North America, according to a new study published in the prominent Cancer journal that directly contradicts official advice about sunlight.

The research examined cancer mortality in the United States. Deaths from a range of cancers of the reproductive and digestive systems were approximately twice as high in New England as in the southwest, despite a diet that varies little between regions.

An examination of 506 regions found a close inverse correlation between cancer mortality and levels of ultraviolet B light. The likeliest mechanism for a protective effect of sunlight is vitamin D, which is synthesized by the body in the presence of ultraviolet B.

The study's author, Dr William Grant (wbgrant@infi.net) , says northern parts of the United States may be dark enough in winter that vitamin D synthesis shuts down completely.

While the study focused on white Americans, the same geographical trend affects black Americans, whose overall cancer rates are significantly higher. Darker skinned people require more sunlight to synthesize vitamin D.

There are 13 malignancies that show this inverse correlation, mostly reproductive and digestive cancers. The strongest inverse correlation is with breast, colon, and ovarian cancer.

Other cancers apparently affected by sunlight include tumors of the bladder, uterus, esophagus, rectum, and stomach.
LINK