Radon in Medical Hydrology. An Update

Abstract

Only a few therapeutic tools have been reported as having both, positive and negative action for human health, such as radon gas. The range of informed actions goes from a mild analgesic effect in patients with rheumatoid arthritis who inhale the gas, to lung cancer in miners (chronic exposition). European and Japanese communications, favors the radon inhalation therapy, while in the Saxon medical literature the therapeutic value of radon is literally ignored. In the’90s, begin to appear studies where the focus was proving that the inhalation of radon coming from mineral water, promotes complex systemic changes. Recently a metaanalysis confirm the beneficial effects of radon in chronic joint disease. Japanese researchers detected systematically, a number of actions occurring without immersion after a few days of breathing in a radon atmosphere. They confirmed that radon inhalation for few days, have an antioxidant action, modify the joint pain in osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. European authors confirm these findings en people exposed to radon in caverns. In medical literature coming from North America, is only audible the lonely voice of Luckey, defending Hormesis Theory in the last 25 years. The paradigm of radiobiological science, has been for years "any radiation is dangerous", “there is a certain risk at each exposure to radiation”. Hormesis theory describes and explains how - in defined situationsan agent usually lethal at high doses produce beneficial stimulation at low doses. We review the medical literature generated last 25years about radon, concluding that coexist two opposite conclusions: a) any inhalation of radon is always dangerous and eventually, responsible for lung cancer; b) Inhalation of small doses of radon produces -through Hormesis phenomenon-, healthy and useful effects in certain clinical setting. By some reason, nature has arranged that biological systems and natural radiation, must coexist in the same environmental space. It will be necessary further research and greater scientific rigor to know completely the action of radon gas inhalated from our hot springs and caverns.