Health effects of radiation exposure

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Q&A: Health effects of radiation exposure
Concern remains over the potential effect on human health from radiation leaks at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
A 20km (12 mile) evacuation zone affecting about 70,000 people has been imposed around the plant,MB880 OBD CAN BUS, and is being extended to five communities outside the zone to the north west of the plant, where radioactive contamination is most significant.
Residents living within 30km (18 miles) have been advised to leave the area, or to stay indoors, and try to make their homes airtight.
Experts believe that swift action of this sort should have minimised the risk to human health, but there are worries about the level of radiation to which emergency workers have been exposed,HITAG-2 Key Programmer, and about possible contamination of food and water supplies.
What are the immediate health effects of exposure to radiation?
Exposure to high levels of radiation - above one gray (the standard measure of the absorbed dose of radiation) - can result in radiation sickness, which produces a range of symptoms.
Nausea and vomiting often begin within hours of exposure, followed by diarrhoea, headaches and fever.
After the first round of symptoms,MaxiScan MS509 Auto Code Scanner, there may be a brief period with no apparent illness, but this may be followed within weeks by new,OBD2 Airbag Resetter for Honda SRS, more serious symptoms.
At higher levels of radiation, all of these symptoms may be immediately apparent, along with widespread - and potentially fatal - damage to internal organs.
Exposure to a radiation dose of four gray will typically kill about half of all healthy adults.
For comparison,GM Mini MDI, radiation therapy for cancer typically involves several doses of between one and seven gray at a time - but these doses are highly controlled, and usually specifically targeted at small areas of the body.
A sievert is a gray weighted by the effectiveness of a particular type of radiation at causing damage to tissues, and is used to measure lower levels of radiation, and for assessing long-term risk, rather than the short-term acute impact of exposure. There are 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) in a sievert.
People are exposed on average to around 2mSv of radiation a year from the natural environment,VAG Dash CAN V5.14, although there is considerable variation in this dose between individuals.
In the UK, the legal limit for radiation exposure from sources such as nuclear plants for members of the public is 1mSv a year, based on recommendations from the International Commission on Radiological Protection.
For emergencies, the upper limit is set higher - 5mSv or more - but these figures are set conservatively, at levels far below those that would significantly raise health risks