Chronic Low-Level Radiation Good for Us? Taiwan Housing Accident Suggests So.

Radiation hormesis (i.e. low level radiation being beneficial) is considered very controversial, but the data about how low levels of radiation affects humans is very bad. Most data that people work with is from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb survivors. On the low end of the scale the models usually just have a question mark. One of the models proposed is radiation hormesis. There is some other (controversial) data that people who are exposed to chronic radon exposure have lower levels of lung cancer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis

The plot on this page shows some of the current guesses about low-level radiation response:

http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/osradtraining/biologicale...

Hormesis would dip below the axis, indicating a less than zero risk.

Cancer death rate goes down to zero when everyone dies from other illnesses.

This journal seems to have a definite political agenda.

http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/91/strange-bedfello...

Note that heat shock hormesis and calorie restriction hormesis (which may involve the same underlying mechanisms) are demonstrably good for you. The science backing those forms of enhanced bodily health are good: a little damage and adversity provokes the body into much greater clean-up and defense efforts, with the net result of increased health and longevity.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis

As other posters point out, the data for radiation hormesis is lacking in comparison. However, it's not an unreasonable hypothesis given the reaction of mammal biology to other types of low-level damage.

Here's a reminder of issues to check in any news report about a scientific study,

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

from Google's director of research, Peter Norvig.

That graph looks TOO good to be true.

Study comparing apples to oranges ... Why anyone takes this seriously? Just because of thrill value?

From Wikipedia:

However, this study has been considered to have next to no scientific value, because it compares the irradiated population with the much older general population of Taiwan. A subsequent study by Hwang et al. (2006) found a significant exposure-dependent increase in cancer in the irradiated population, particularly leukemia in men and thyroid cancer in women, though this trend is only detected amongst those who were first exposed before the age of 30

These theories have been around for decades:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis

Needless to say, they don't have a lot of mainstream acceptance.

Hmm, interesting, well, has anyone repeated the results in lab animals in a controlled environment?

I'm assuming the effects on humans are different for different types of radiation and different types of exposure; as I recall, lung cancer deaths are significantly higher in regions where radon (an alpha-emitter) emissions from granite are above average.

there is a kind of logic to this. Humans have evolved in an environment where there is continual low level background radiation. So like any other feature of the environment, we are adapted to cope with it, maybe even to expect and benefit from it.

I really don't see how low-level radiation can be good for us. If it is then cell phones should also prevent brain cancer.

http://www.globalchange.com/radiation.htm

I agree with eggoa who said that this article must have a political agenda.