Higher background radiation levels lead to lower levels of lung, pancreatic and colon cancers in both American men and women as well as lower rates of brain and bladder cancers in men, according to a new study in Biogerontology by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Nuclear Research Center Negev scientists.
In fact, they found, life expectancy increased with exposure to higher natural radiation levels.
Background radiation is ionizing radiation present in the environment from natural sources
The data they crunched came from the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s radiation dose calculator from all 3,129 US counties; US cancer statistics; and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington Medical Center.
Background radiation is ionizing radiation present in the environment from natural sources. This is the first large-scale study taking into account the two major sources of background radiation (terrestrial radiation and cosmic radiation), covering the entire US population.
Across the US, background radiation fluctuates between 92 to 227 millirem per year. (A millirem is a measure of the health effect of low-level ionizing radiation on the human body.)
Since the 1960s, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent around the world to reduce background radiation levels under the 227 threshold.-- More...
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