Radioactive Taiwan: Followup

[Back in 2004 I heard about a case where a bunch of apartment buildings in Taiwan were accidentally constructed out of (mildly) radioactive metal. This was not discovered until ten thousand people had spent one to two decades living in those buildings. The common perception of radiation, called the LNT theory (Linear-No-Threshold), says that radiation is always bad for you even in small doses, and suggests that cancer rates among these people should have been sky-high. Instead cancer rates were unusually LOW, about 3% the normal average even for people living in non-radioactive buildings. There was a followup study done in 2007 that I skimmed, which concluded that the effect seemed to be real and that cancer rates for all types of cancer except leukemia really had drastically dropped (leukemia rates went slightly up) and that more study was needed.

Today it occurred to me that I never found out if further research had been done, so I went looking. I found a bunch of papers including this one from 2018. I'm no expert but it looks like the phenomenon seen in the radioactive Taiwanese incident is holding up in other studies, and LNT is losing favor in the scientific community. -Max]

Abstract

The effects of low-dose radiation are being increasingly investigated in biological, epidemiological, and clinical studies. Many recent studies have indicated the beneficial effects of low doses of radiation, whereas some studies have suggested harmful effects even at low doses. This review article introduces various studies reporting both the beneficial and harmful effects of low-dose radiation, with a critique on the extent to which respective studies are reliable. Epidemiological studies are inherently associated with large biases, and it should be evaluated whether the observed differences are due to radiation or other confounding factors. On the other hand, well-controlled laboratory studies may be more appropriate to evaluate the effects of low-dose radiation. Since the number of such laboratory studies is steadily increasing, it will be concluded in the near future whether low-dose radiation is harmful or beneficial and whether the linear-no-threshold (LNT) theory is appropriate. Many recent biological studies have suggested the induction of biopositive responses such as increases in immunity and antioxidants by low-dose radiation. Based on recent as well as classical studies, the LNT theory may be out of date, and low-dose radiation may have beneficial effects depending on the conditions; otherwise, it may have no effects. [emphasis added. -Max]

Keywords: low-dose radiation, hormesis, adaptive response
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6121451/

 --

I could not love thee dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.