The Effects Of Irradiation

Radiation sickness can have huge impacts on an individual’s immune system and the production of blood cell. The gastrointestinal system and bone marrow, where each of these essential systems of the human body are housed, are highly susceptible to radiation sickness. “...the gastrointestinal system and bone marrow are highly sensitive to radiation”(Mayo Clinic Staff 1). Radiation sickness has two main phases. The first phase mostly includes puking and feeling sick, but diarrhea, headache and fever isn’t uncommon. “The initial signs and symptoms of treatable

Cancer is a genetic, heritable disease in which abnormal cells divide rapidly destroying normal body cells, often being fatal. Cancer can occur in any body tissue; skin, organs, and parts of the reproductive system (Duda). There are various activities linked to different types of cancer, such as smoking, too much sun exposure, gene mutations, carcinogens, and viruses. A major cause of cancer, dating all the way back to the 1950’s, is radiation. Atomic testing ordered by the U.S. Government has been suspected to be the cause of many deaths linked to radiation-related diseases (Williams 149).

There are two reactions that happen in the human body when ionizing radiation within the diagnostic range (30-150 kilovolt peak) is

Beginning with the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979, a widespread belief has proliferated that all levels of ionizing radiation are dangerous. Since 1980, radiation hormesis studies have shown there is actually a threshold of danger with high level exposures, but below that threshold low dose radiation is essentially safe and quite possibly beneficial to life. Yet, this relatively new, seemingly contradictory understanding of radiation's health effects has gone essentially unknown to the general public. In order to grasp the reasons why, we must again return to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

According to Ecker and Bramesco, the majority of the understanding of the effects of radiation comes from the research from the atomic bombings of the town of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (107). There is a greater effect when a dose of radiation is given all at once rather than over an extended period of time (105), However, as soon as radiation hits an individual there are some immediate effects and more long term effects. Some long issues that has come up due to the radiation of the atomic bomb were the more frequent cases of leukemia, cancer, and cataracts than people who weren’t affected from radiation (Ecker and Bramseco 107). Also, mutations can be a long term effect. Naturally, mutations occur at a low rate. Radiation can increase the number of mutation cases because it is a mutagen (Nasr and Hoyle). Some short term effects would be radiation sickness called acute somatic effects. Acute means severe and somatic means ‘related to the body’. The first signs of radiation sickness are nausea, throwing-up, and fever and

Though often effective, radiation therapy presents unique challenges with regard to early and late treatment toxicities, thought to develop as a response to vascular

Within the Brugge Lab, we have investigated the role of various metabolic pathways in cancer including the role of antioxidants within the tumor cell. Although antioxidants were previously believed to scavenge harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS) and provide a protective benefit against cancer, clinical trials have demonstrated that supplementation with antioxidants actually increased prostate cancer incidence among healthy patients. I joined a postdoctoral fellow in the lab to determine whether depletion of glutathione, the major antioxidant within the cell, would put the cell in a sensitive state that made it vulnerable to inhibition of other major pathways. Through our screening effects, we discovered that triple negative breast cancer cells become exquisitely sensitive to treatment with inhibitors of deubiquitinating enzymes through an induction of a proteotoxic stress response. I look forward to sharing these findings with the scientific community as second author on the manuscript currently in preparation.

Medalia (2011) concludes that ionizing radiation, in other words radiation separate from harmless radio waves and light, has the ability to knock electrons out of atoms, causing a condition that produces an electrically charged atom that can damage human cells. Only a very small amount is needed to produce biological change. Symptoms include cancer, genetic mutations, sickness, vomiting, diarrhea, hemorrhaging, and at high doses, death within hours (Medalia 2011).

Main compounds of the enzymatic antioxidant system are three, namely, SOD, CAT and tT which have an important role in detoxifying of H2O2 and superoxide anion in cells. Ample of hepatotoxic drugs induces the liver damage by lipid peroxidation indirectly or directly. The proxy radicals are main factors that mediate lipid peroxidation leading to liver injury and kidney damage(41). MDA as a main reactive aldehyde appears during polyunsaturated fatty acid peroxidation in the biological

From hair you will lose it quite quickly and it clumps around 200 rems. In the 5,000 rems of radiation it will start to kill nerve cells and a lot of small blood vessels causing seizures and immediate death. The thyroid gland is superbly susceptible to radioactive iodine in some cases destroying the whole thyroid which stores and produces hormones that affect the function of almost all organ in our bodies. Next is the blood system. The blood system, around 100 rems or so, make the bloods lymphocyte count extremely low making the person very susceptible to infection. This is considered minor radiation sickness. The early symptoms are very flu-like and will continue on until the blood count is almost completely gone, which can be extremely fatal for you. Your heart which at around 1,000 to 5,000 rems will do immediate damage to multiple small blood vessels and cause will probably cause heart failure or simply immediate direct death. Also radiation effects the gastrointestinal tract. The gastrointestinal tract, which includes the mouth, throat, and anus, helps digest food. With rad damage to the intestinal tract lining will cause nausea, bloody vomits and diarrhea above 200 rems. The intense amount of rads wil destroy cells that multiply very fast include the blood gastrointestinal tract reproductive and hair cells. This also harms the dna and rna of most of the

One potential stochastic effect that can occur with ionizing radiation is thyroid cancer. Thyroid cancer is the 5th most common cancer in women. The diagnosis of thyroid malignancy has increased worldwide in the last few decades and is the most rapidly increasing cancer in the United States with a 5.1% increase from 2003 to 2012. Common symptoms of thyroid cancer are a lump on the neck, a tight feeling in the neck, difficulty breathing or swallowing, hoarseness, and swollen lymph nodes. However in many cases, no symptoms arise and the cancer is diagnosed because an abnormality is seen on an imaging test being performed for another reason2.

In the first two weeks, trauma and mainly burns from the explosions rays and flames were to follow. In the third week or so people began to see symptoms of radiation damage such as loss of hair, anemia, loss of white cells, bleeding and diarrhea. 10% of these cases were fatal. (Destructive Effects). Throughout the third and fourth month of there seemed to be some improvement in

Radiation therapy is the ionization of atoms in tissues resulting in formation of highly reactive radicals in a well-defined, restricted volume (1). In other words, ionizing radiations are used to eradicate tumors and at the same time preserve structure and function of normal tissue. A limitation is prevented from being a problem. If bone marrow or neuronal cells are destroyed or injured, they do not regenerate. However, with radiation therapy, these cells are often saved from injury or destruction, unless the tumor is infecting bone marrow or neuronal cells. Today, radiation therapy is the most popular type of cancer therapy in use. It is used to treat one-half to two-thirds of all cancers, which translates to more than ten percent of the population

It is divided into two kinds of radiation: Ionizing Radiation and Ultraviolet Radiation. Ionizing radiation (gamma rays and x-rays) has more energy which increases the penetrating power. This kind of radiation ionizes water and other molecules to release free radical that damage the structure of DNA molecules and its proteins. U.V. radiation has lower wavelength which means lower energy. This radiation cannot penetrate surfaces, resulting in only damaging what’s on the surface of exposure.

Radiation is an important environmental abiotic factor for plants, and one small section of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum, is called the Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR), provides the energy to drive the light reactions of photosynthesis. Such radiation damages biological tissues by detaching electrons from the atoms that make up organic molecules. The results include radiation poisoning, cancer, and elevated mutation