Question: how does radiation affect the body

Samantha Watson answered on 8 Nov 2016:

If you don’t know too much about radiation you might want to see this /astatinen16-zone/2016/11/08/what-is-radiation/#comment-96 first? But there are different types of radiation, which have different effects on the body.

Quite often when people say “radiation” they mean the ionising type of radiation such as xrays, gamma rays, alpha and beta particles. These different types of radiation have different properties, which means they can travel different distances through the body. For example, xrays can pass right through your body, which is how they are used to make xray images in hospitals. But alpha particles are stopped by your skin, so they can’t get into the body unless you swallow or inhale them, or they get in through a cut in the skin.

But if ionising radiation is passing though human tissue, there is a chance that some of the energy will interact with the atoms in the tissue, and cause ionisation, in the same way as could happen in whatever material the radiation is passing through. If this happens to the atoms in your body, it’s possible that the cells might get damaged. Depending on the type of radiation, and the amount of radiation that passes through the body, there could be an immediate effect or the damage may remain hidden for some time. An example of an immediate effect is if someone gets a lot of radiation, especially in a short period of time, this can make them sick, or burn their skin. If the damage is not so severe to have an immediate effect, there is a chance that the body will repair the cells and there will be no ill effect, but sometimes the damage isn’t repaired properly and this can cause cancer.