So, is radiation dangerous? Will it harm me?

As I discussed in my previous post, the main form of radiation used in diagnostic radiography (mammography included), is ionizing. Since ionizing radiation holds the potential to remove orbital electrons from atoms, this does make them dangerous, but fear not, I will inform you of how dangerous and if preventative mammography screenings are really worth getting.

When an orbital electron is removed from an atom, the atom becomes unstable. If you remember learning about atoms in high school, you will recall that when an atom becomes unstable due to an unpaired electron, it creates free radicals. Free radicals are molecules that are extremely reactive and they dramatically increase biologic damage to cells. Free radicals can produce unwanted chemical reactions in the cells and due to their lack of an electron, they continuously rip electrons from other atoms, which inevitably creates a chain reaction of free radicals. When these cells with an unpaired electron duplicate, they can create cells with mutations, which potentially cause cancer. Cancer occurs when a mutated cell continues to duplicate, which causes many more mutated cells to arise, at an unstoppable rate. [3]

So, let's put this all together: radiographic procedures, such as mammography, use ionizing radiation to produce the diagnostic images that doctors require to assist in diagnosing illness and disease. Ionizing radiation holds the potential to cause free radicals, which in turn, hold the potential to cause cancers.

At this point in time, it is known that ANY amount of ionizing radiation can cause cancer because it only takes one cell to mutate to start cancer. There are certain amounts of radiation that are known to cause specific problems, for example: a single dose of 200 rads to the gonads will cause temporary sterility for 12 months. [4] Do not let this scare you, as there are means of protecting yourself if you have to receive a radiographic procedure, and most doses you receive from a radiographic procedure, will come nowhere close to that dose. Example: for a typical mammogram, the patient receives only 300 mrad (milli-rad--a milli rad is 1000 times smaller than a rad).[5]