Harm Of Nuclear Radiation To Human Body

There are four main types of nuclear radiation: α particles, β particles, γ rays and neutrons.
α particle moves slowly with a short range, and is easily blocked by materials, and the damage caused by external radiation is limited.

β particles are high-energy positron currents or negative electron currents;

γ rays are high-energy electromagnetic waves with strong penetrability, which can penetrate human tissue and cause ionizing damage to the deep layers of human tissue.

From the point of view of damage, the damage caused by β particles is greater.

Neutrons are a kind of neutral particles in the nucleus, which have greater penetration and lethality.Neutrons have high penetration and variable energy, so the damage of neutrons to the human body depends on their own energy.
Nuclear radiation can penetrate human cells, promote the activation of oncogenes, and cause irreversible canceration of human cells.
The inactivation of tumor suppressor genes may play a very critical role in the carcinogenesis of nuclear radiation.
The most closely related cancers are leukemia, breast cancer, thyroid tumors and lung cancer.
Therefore, most of the residents who were exposed to radiation at that time were inseparable from these cancers.
Most cancers are incurable, and most residents exposed to radiation exposure have a high recurrence rate after treatment.
This is related to substantial changes in cells in the body.
Although nuclear radiation can do a lot of damage to our bodies, it is unscientific to talk about harmful behaviors aside from doses.
International agencies have announced that the effective dose of nuclear radiation to the public is 1mSv/year; practitioners require that the average annual effective dose for 5 consecutive years should not exceed 20mSv/year.
Nuclear radiation generally harms the human body in two ways.
One is external radiation. This radiation source is outside the human body, like a machine gun directed at us.
The other, known as internal exposure radiation, is when air and food contaminated by a radiation source enters the body through breathing, eating, or contact, and protrudes outward.
Needless to say, the latter is more harmful.
At the molecular level, the direct effect of nuclear radiation can ionize or excite biological macromolecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins.
Not only that, nuclear radiation will also ionize the water in the cells, and the free radicals and hydrogen peroxide produced will change the structure of macromolecules, thereby losing their activity.
Although our body can repair these damaged cells.
But once the radiation dose exceeds a certain limit, the body can't keep up with its own repair capabilities.

Some diseases, such as cancer, will appear.

Heavy metals have a shielding effect on nuclear radiation. Common shielding materials include flexible lead rubber sheets, lead glass, lead sheets, etc.