Does Radiation Exposure reduce the risk of Cancer?

I can dig up a bunch of older stories that suggest that what I'm postulating might be true. I just don't have time to do it now. Some demonstrate that (highly radioactive) mammals exposed to massive long term radiation. About 100 times the radiation of the bombs dropped on Japan, are in healthy condition.

Here is one of them:

Quote: Chernobyl Animals Highly Contaminated But Undeformed

ScienceDaily (Sep. 16, 1997) When University of Georgia researchers hold a Geiger counter over rodents living near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine, the clicks grow quickly into a continuous roar.
"You wouldn't want to handle an animal like that, and yet they are surviving," said Cham E. Dallas, a UGA associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology, who - with fellow researchers - has made eight expeditions to Chernobyl since 1991.

-Snip-

Quote:
Rodents such as voles show even higher levels of contamination, as much as 10 times the levels found in U.S. rodents. "No one has ever seen levels like that before," Dallas said. UGA researchers also have found genetic changes in these animals.
"I use the word change and not damage," Dallas said, because the implications of the changes remain unclear. "We found no deformed animals. None at all."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/09/970916055418.htm

My other off the wall theory. Radiation is everywhere and we are constantly bombarded with it and have been for all eternity. What if radiation is what controls genetic mutations and adaptation or put another way. Mutations or RADIATION are the raw materials of evolution?

Mary008 wrote: Much of the area of blue and pink is way less populated than areas of red (lung cancer) Red,( lung cancer)  in the Sun Belt (sunlight reaction with pollution) and the east coast area is highly populated...especially with elderly...so there are a lot of other exlpanations/factors to explain the incidence of lung cancer in areas of red.

I'm sure there are endless other reasons for cancer like pollution, income, ethnicity, chemicals in the food, ground and water. The list never ends but I just don't see how you're reading the map. The top map is Cancers per 100,000 People based on each county in the US so it's balanced. New Jersey has the highest population density state in the United States and it's not red, same with very high density areas in California and New York are not red so I don't see your correlation.

You can look at other Cancer maps that cover just about every type of cancer and see whey match Radon, Gamma rates like this one does.

.

It seems that areas in the united states with the

 

highest background gamma radiation and radon

 

also have the lowest cases of cancer per populous.
..................

I was thinking that those areas mentioned,

 

gamma radiation (pink) and radon (pink again)

 

are for the most part...not highly populated  

 

and not highly polluted + SUN

2 large contributing factors to higher  L.C. numbers

also factors

Cheaper ciggs (tobacco states in red area) more smoking

North Carolina and Kentucky account for approximately 65 percent of total U.S.
production, and four other states (Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia)
produce approximately 25 percent of all U.S. tobacco.

lower income

 

less education (especially about smoking danger)

 

stress
.........................................................................................

 

 thoughts ... to join in the discussion.

 

 

Mary008 wrote: . It seems that areas in the united states with the   highest background gamma radiation and radon   also have the lowest cases of cancer per populous. ..................

You haven't been to West Virginia. I had 5 radon tests kits sent to me by EPA and we were getting some real high stuff here near a possible fissure. WV is notorious for Radon gas and we have some of the highest cancer rates in the U.S.

Radon gas isn't doing us any favors here.

Med

Medicine does use radiation to burn cancer out. As we know. Also they use it with goiters in Graves Disease, my mother had a toxic goiter and had to use radio active iodine per the Mayo Clinic in the sixties.