Are X-Rays Bad for You?
X-rays are often necessary to help physicians and other health care professionals get a better glimpse of what’s going on inside the body. It is through x-rays that fractured bones are identified, tumors are spotted, and other health problems are revealed. While x-ray technology has done much to improve medical diagnosis, there are certain risks involved with the use of x-rays on the human body. Here, we will explore those risks and the precautions x-ray technicians must take to protect patients as well as themselves.
X-ray technicians operate machines that are designed to harness the power of ionizing radiation to produce images of the inside of someone’s body. This type of radiation has always posed a health risk. In the early days of x-ray science, doctors and patients who were exposed to ionizing radiation showed signs of radiation sickness, according to a Discovery Health article on the topic. However, that was because these doctors and patients were exposed to high doses of radiation for long periods of time. Today’s x-ray and CT examinations use low doses of radiation that do not cause radiation sickness, according to Mayo Clinic.
However, x-rays do have the potential to affect atoms of the human body, knocking loose the atom’s electron and leaving only an ion, an electrically-charged atom, according to the Discovery Health article. Those free-floating electrons can then crash into other atoms, creating yet more ions. This is a big deal because the electrical charge that comes from these ions often causes unnatural chemical reactions inside human cells, the article points out. DNA chains can be broken, which can kill the chain completely or cause it to mutate, leading to various diseases and even cancer. In the case of pregnant women, the ionizing effect can lead to birth defects, which is why x-rays are not generally given to expectant women.
For this reason, physicians generally order x-rays for patients sparingly because they do not want patients being exposed to this risk unless absolutely necessary. However, as a diagnostic tool, x-ray imaging is still safer than surgery, which has greater risks including major infections and other complications.
So to answer the question, yes, x-rays can negatively affect your health and increase your risk of cancer. However, x-ray technology has improved greatly over the years and x-ray technicians now have a greater ability to limit the dose of radiation used, as well as limit exposure to a small area of the body. They now know to protect themselves and other areas of a patient’s body not being scanned with lead shields and to stand as far away from the radiation source as possible.
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