25 responses to “Radiation Hormesis Explained”

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  Moe LeBlanc October 13th, 2009 at 08:35

  My wife has had a neurological disease that affects her eyesight and vocal chords. Do you think this would help her?

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  GREGG LARSON October 15th, 2009 at 22:45

  I am an engineer with direct & continuous experience in the nuclear industry for the last 40 years; 26 years in U.S. nuclear navy, with the balance in commercial U.S. nuclear utilities.

  At a basic level, the LNT concept is a dark-age political/bureaucratic convenience that has, after 65 years of data collection since Hiroshima, shown to have a growing & asymptoic approach to being entirely debunked - revoked and wrong.

  We cannot afford any longer to waste resources on out-dated requirements that reqire testing and sociatal restrictions based on overly conservative bases.

  I’m not talking about radioactive waste of long-lived isotopes, but the concerns over the innoculus impact of such things as radon or tritium.

  Very specifically, we should educate our society and imbrace the positive (i.e. hormemsis-based) effects, rather than the largely hypotheitically negative effects of such radioactive elements as Radon and Tritium. In fact, with little extrapolation of the data already accepted, we should be promoting the marketing of bottled tritiated water at 100 times the current restrictive concentations — not agonizing over how to deal with radon in our basements or what to do with a million picocuries of tritium in drinking water.

  Bottom line — has a beta dose, no matter the leve, ever been shown to damage a biological cell?

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  Neil Craig February 4th, 2010 at 06:43

  100% Gregg. There is substantial evidence for hormesis 7 none whatsoever for LNT. The maintenance of the latter does inded make it a sign of dark age political control.

  I didn’t know that about Beta refiation - thanks.

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  pete devereaux February 24th, 2010 at 11:45

  I am a man living with Metastatic breast cancer. Will this help me and what should i start with. Are you ever going to be speaking or working in the Boston,ma area.

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  Doug Huffman April 10th, 2010 at 12:22

  While I too believe in radiation hormesis, I would not recommend ill-advised exposure, however heart wrenching the ailment.

  Hormesis works at the species evolution level, its effects on an individual are lost in the noise of environmental toxicology. Its effects are subtle.

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  Neil Craig April 10th, 2010 at 13:00

  Spa water is slightly radioactive & has anecdotal support over thousands of years. These guys seem to be doing the same. http://www.nighthawkminerals.com/whynighthawk.htm

  That doesn’t mean they will be much more effective than Lourdes, bearing in mind that it is decades since Lourdes have had a credible miracle. Prof Cohen said the positive effect of radon hormesis was more than half the negative of smoking which is a long way from a magic bullet. A few decades of research would & by now could have changed things but that was politically incorrect.

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  Doug Huffman April 10th, 2010 at 14:57

  “[N]one whatsoever for LNT”? Hmm, are you sure? I thought LNT was a straight line extrapolation, of bomb victim data, to the left. You may disagree with the data and the technique but it does comprise substantial evidence.

  But then to come along and tout thousands of years of anecdotal evidence (of some spa water), in the same bolus with Cohen, suggests a less than tight grip on science and epidemiology.

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  Neil Craig April 11th, 2010 at 08:23

  The bomb data used is for people with very high exposure & so says absloutely nothing about low level radiation. Subsequent data over the decades on Hiroshima surviors not near the blast centre does indeed appear to show a hormesis effect. If you know of any actual data that supports LNT I would be very interested to see it.

  Even anecdotal, so labelled, would be valuable if there was nothing better. For example if you could find some anecdotal evidence that people leaving Yellowstone Park, where radiation levels are far higher than nuclear workers are allowed, are particularly likely to claim to be feeling ill.

  No? Imagine my surprise.

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  Paul May 28th, 2010 at 09:42

  I think Dr. Sternglass’ book ‘Secret Fallout’ gives some very convincing epidemiological evidence of the LNT. You can read it free here:
  http://www.ratical.org/radiation/SecretFallout/SF.html

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  Neil Craig May 28th, 2010 at 11:10

  Just run through chapter 1 Paul & there was no hint of such actual evidence. Of course I could point you at the Britannica & claim to prove anything I want by telling you to start reading.

  Perhaps you could be specific about what convincing evidence is there & say where?

  Or perhaps not since nobody, nobody at all, anywhere, has been able to.

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  Paul May 28th, 2010 at 20:11

  I’m afraid the only evidence I can offer is written evidence. Convincing evidence of the LDN will only come from either very large scale studies, or from ‘natural experiments’ as Dr Sternglass has done, by looking at historical data.

  I urge you to read the whole book, not just the first chapter. You will see it has a large bibliography full of evidence (experimental and epidemiological studies) that low level radiation is dangerous and that the LDN is correct. Despite attempts by the nuclear industry to silence him, Dr Sternglass managed to publish his evidence of massive increases in foetal death, childhood leukaemia and increased infant mortality downwind of every nuclear test blast.

  Dr Sternglass estimates that “some 400,000 infants of less than one year of age probably had died as the result of nuclear fallout between 1950 and 1965″.

  Maybe you can come up with another reason for these large increases in cancers, miscarriage, stillbirth and premature death after these nuclear tests, and only downwind of their location. It cannot possibly be coincidence, and the same pattern is seen all over the world.

  As for evidence of hormesis at Hiroshima, it looks as if they were comparing cancer rates near Hiroshima with cancer rates in other parts of Japan, where fallout from Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Pacific bomb tests had increased background radiation, leading to increased cancer rates. If you compare them to cancer rates before the bomb as dropped, you get a very different picture. Childhood leukaemia cases in Japan increased by a factor of 5 after Hiroshima, for example.
  Bizzozero, J., Johnson, K., Ciocco, A., Hoshino, T., Toga, T., Toyoda, S., and Kawasaki, S. 1966. Radiation related leukemia in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. New England Journal of Medicine 274:1095-1101.
  Recent reviews of the evidence suggest that even low level exposure to radiation at Hiroshima leads to increased rates of solid cancers and leukaemia.
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19454804

  You might also look at the work of Martha Stewart. She proved beyond all reasonable doubt that even the low level radiation of an x-ray measurably increases the risk of cancer in a foetus.

  What sort of evidence would convince you that the LDN is correct?

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  Neil Craig May 29th, 2010 at 06:17

  Large scale studies have been done. See Professor Cohen’s correlation of cancer & radon across the entire usa. It shows the hormesis effect to be true & at least half as beneficial as smoking is harmful.
  http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2010/03/low-level-radiation-evidence-that-it-is.html
  This & numerous other unrelated proofs of hormesis are linked here & I urge you to read the lot.

  I am afraid life is too short to read an entire book on the basis that somebody promises there is proof of the LNT theory somewhaere in it but cant saw what or where.

  I very much doubt if Sternglass is telling the truth if he claims there has been a large overall increase in stillbirths & premature deaths since 1945 since all other evidence is that, everywhere across the world, these have enormously decreased since then.

  Had more than 50% of the pieces of evidence I have linked to shown the opposite results I would think that LNT was at least 50% more likely to be true than hormesis - none of them have been & indeed nobody anywhere in the world seems able to produce any credible scientific evidence for it though I remain open to somebody doing so. If, after having a chance to check the evidence you still doubt radiation hormesis Paul please tell me what sort of evidence you would need to convince you.

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  Henry Wolfgang Falk June 9th, 2010 at 21:54

  Hello,

  Sorry to bother you, but I have been looking at your website and there are so major issues with some of the thing you have posted on here. First off I am a nuclear engineering graduate student reaching this topic currently. I have read just about everything there is about radiation hormesis. you are correct that there is benefits to LET(Low Energy Transferred) exposures that are help the bodies response to cellular abnormalities like cancer. Your body will build a active response to these abnormalities. What you must remember though is that higher doses will cause cancer. I do not know what type of radiation your “rocks” is emiting, but if it is very energetic constant exposure will be harmful. Have you tested the exposure (not using a Geiger-Mular counter) from your radioactive materials? Do you know what isotope or composition of isotopes your “rock” is? Have you registered with the NRC and are licensed to sell knowingly radioactive materials? Thank you for your time.

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  Anne June 26th, 2010 at 10:03

  My husband has Picks Disease - a rare neurological disease which results in atrophy of the brain. Have you had any one with dementia helped by hormesis?

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  neil craig June 26th, 2010 at 12:02

  Hormesis theorists assume it works by stimulating the immune system (though nobody knows for sure) so it would be unlikely to help in your case Anne.

  However I just read this about magnetic stimulation. http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=/news/news_single.html?id%3D12341

  I would urge you not to get your hopes up. Sometimes life is cruel.

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  Paul June 27th, 2010 at 07:07

  Neil - Cohen’s work on radon has been refuted - his study showed negative correlation between cigarette smoking and radon in homes, which doesn’t make sense and suggests there is something wrong with the data. On the other hand Sternglass’s work has also been criticized for poor use of statistics. Having read more on the subject, I wonder if exposure to external radiation may have short-term hormetic effects, yet ingestion or inhalation may have long-term damaging effects. If you have a particle of plutonium or radium lodged in your lung for decades it may not be a good thing. Whatever the effect of low level radiation, it must be very small, otherwise we wouldn’t be arguing about it. It is easy to find spurious statistical correlations when effect magnitudes are low. Essentially we may be looking at noise.

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  neil craig June 27th, 2010 at 07:40

  “showed negative correlation between cigarette smoking and radon in homes, which doesn’t make sense”

  Indeed it doesn’t - could you provide a link to your primary source?

  “It is easy to find spurious statistical correlations when effect magnitudes are low. Essentially we may be looking at noise.”

  That is always a possibility though the experimental evidence for a hormesis effect in plants bacteria & small animals seems very robust, which means hormesis should br the defaut assumption in more animals like us. If that argument were correct it would also apply, in spades, to discredit the LNT theory except, of course, that there is absolutely no experimental evidence behind it. It is certainlt an argument for more actual research on the subject rather than the assumption that the purely bureaucratic decision to adopt LNT has validity.

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  Paul June 28th, 2010 at 07:21

  Here’s the study that found a negative correlation between cigarette smoking and radon in Cohen’s figures:

  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12705451
  Smoking as a confounder in ecologic correlations of cancer mortality rates with average county radon levels.
  Puskin JS. Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, U.S. EPA, Washington, DC 20460, USA.
  Health Phys. 2004 Feb;86(2):203-4; author reply 204-5.
  Abstract
  Cohen has reported a negative correlation between lung cancer mortality and average radon levels by county. In this paper, the correlation of U.S. county mortality rates for various types of cancers during the period 1970-1994 with Cohen’s radon measurements is examined. In general, quantitatively similar, strongly negative correlations are found for cancers strongly linked to cigarette smoking, weaker negative correlations are found for cancers moderately increased by smoking, whereas no such correlation is found for cancers not linked to smoking. The results indicate that the negative trend previously reported for lung cancer can be largely accounted for by a negative correlation between smoking and radon levels across counties. Hence, the observed ecological correlation provides no substantial evidence for a protective effect of low level radon exposure.

  A recent German review article looked at radon exposure and lung cancer.
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2853156/
  Radon in Indoor Spaces: An Underestimated Risk Factor for Lung Cancer in Environmental Medicine
  The main findings were:
  “Even after smoking behavior is taken into account, there is a clear association between radon concentrations in indoor spaces and the occurrence of lung cancer. A dose-response relationship was seen even in the realm of low doses (< 200 Bq/m3), and no evidence for a threshold value was found.
  Radon in indoor spaces is estimated to be the cause of about 9% of all deaths from lung cancer and 2% of all deaths from cancer in Europe.”

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  mike July 8th, 2010 at 23:36

  Any positive results with Lyme’s disease??

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  Anne July 31st, 2010 at 05:57

  Will this help any of the affects of Parkinson’s disease?

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  Bill Hannahan August 26th, 2010 at 00:13

  Claims that errors in the Cohen study have been proven are false. Cohen makes a strong defense of his study here.

  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2475951/

  Some excerpts;

  It is frequently implied that our study is inferior to case-control studies for testing LNT. Aside from the fact that case-control studies do not have the statistical power to test LNT in the low dose region, this ignores the inherent weaknesses in treatments of CF (Confounding Factors) in case-control studies. An individual’s risk of lung cancer depends on a multitude of factors on a molecular, cellular, intercellular, hormonal, etc. level that are not understood, not readily measurable, and therefore not considered in these studies. There are also a large number of potential CFs that could be, but are not included because of time, cost, or other practical limitations. In practice, case-control studies treat only a very few CFs, often using multivariate regression which is a process of limited validity, and frequently depending on marginal statistics…

  Our study has many important advantages over these case-control studies. It treats a far wider diversity of CF, and even includes a strong argument that an unidentified CF cannot be important—no such arguments are available in case-control studies which can easily be rendered invalid by an unrecognized CF. Our study largely avoids use of multivariate regression with its inherent weaknesses pointed out in Sec. 2.2 above and elsewhere. It includes a method for treating cases where no data are available on a required variable, by use of “plausibility of correlation”. It includes a wide variety of geographic areas and population characteristics, whereas case-control studies are normally confined to a single, or at most a few local areas. Statistical uncertainties, one of the greatest limitations in many case-control studies, are virtually eliminated.

  With all these advantages, the problem in accepting our study is difficult to understand unless someone can suggest a plausible specific CF that could possibly explain our discrepancy. It must be specific in order to address the issue of plausibility, but it is not necessary to show that it does explain our discrepancy, only that it might possibly explain it. If such a suggestion is forthcoming, I would be eager to address it. I have tried very hard to solicit such a suggestion but have had only marginal success. Therefore, until such a CF is suggested, it seems reasonable to conclude that LNT fails our experimental test and must therefore be invalid in the low dose region covered by Fig 1.

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  Elaine August 26th, 2010 at 02:50

  Are there any radiation oncologists anywhere in North America who have used in the past, or are presently using low dose radiation treatments on cancer patients? I would be very interested in finding such a person or persons and learning of the results as I am considering radiation hormesis for my husband.

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  Elaine August 26th, 2010 at 02:51

  Are there any radiation oncologists anywhere in North America who have used in the past, or are presently using low dose radiation treatments on cancer patients? I would be very interested in finding such a person or persons and learning of the results as I am considering LDR for my husband.

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  Andres Beans October 3rd, 2010 at 23:12

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  Elaine October 4th, 2010 at 02:46

  I didn’t receive a reply regarding LDR treatments anywhere in North America. If I expand my query to include other continents, can anyone direct me to an oncology radiologist anywhere in the world who has participated or is participating in studies of LDR treatments for cancer patients, or who has actually given LDR treaments to such with the hoped for result of decreasing or eliminating cancer tumours?