Gamma-Ray Radiation?

[jumperconway 0]

I wonder how this affects us as skydivers?

...and another thing

Here's a tricky question that almost no one gets right the first time they hear it:

Q: What is the body's largest organ?
A: The skin.

It weighs roughly six pounds, and if taken off your body and laid flat it would cover more than 20 square feet. More importantly, skin is instrumental in stabilizing the body's internal environment. And just as the interior of the body benefits from detox, so does the skin.

In a previous Members Alert, HSI Panelist Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., C.N.S., shared information about special cleansing baths developed by Dr. Hazel Parcells, who Dr. Gittleman calls a pioneer of inner and outer cleansing. According to Dr. Parcells, radiation (from cosmic rays and naturally occurring radioactive materials in our environment) is a hidden killer that assaults our immune systems, via the skin, on a daily basis.

For skin detox, Dr. Parcells recommends this salt and soda soak, which is highly alkaline and helps neutralize the effects of radiation: Place 2 pounds of salt with 2 pounds of baking soda in a hot bath and soak for 20 minutes, until the water cools. That's all there is to it.

In addition to the typical radiation we're exposed to daily, each airline flight increases our exposure to gamma-ray radiation, which may put some frequent fliers at greater risk of cancer. Dr. Parcells suggests that a salt and soda soak following every flight, as well as every dental or medical x-ray, will go a long way toward providing your skin the detoxification it needs in order to help keep the rest of your body healthy.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute

[Rebecca 0]

Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.



Meh, sounds a little, I dunno, hokey to me. 2 pounds each salt and baking soda? Isn't that kind of a lot? I mean, a salt bath is good for you, but what does Alkalinity have to do with radiation? Does radiation increase our skin's acidity level?

In any case, it couldn't hurt...

you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' -- well do you, punk?

[rasmack 0]

It is a long know fact, that filght attendants and ailrline pilots receive substantial amounts of radiation, but they operate at roughly 30000 ft for many hours at a time for a number of years. I think it is quite safe to assume that radiation damage is the least of your worries when jumping out of a perfectly good airplane

HF #682, Team Dirty Sanchez #227
“I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.”
- Not quite Oscar Wilde...

[DTOXX 0]

Quote

I think it is quite safe to assume that radiation damage is the least of your worries when jumping out of a perfectly good airplane

LOL Awesome!

-------
D.T. Holder
SIMstudy

[wartload 0]

Quote

I wonder how this affects us as skydivers?
[...]
In addition to the typical radiation we're exposed to daily, each airline flight increases our exposure to gamma-ray radiation, which may put some frequent fliers at greater risk of cancer. Dr. Parcells suggests that a salt and soda soak following every flight, as well as every dental or medical x-ray, will go a long way toward providing your skin the detoxification it needs in order to help keep the rest of your body healthy.

In one of the USN courses that I had to take, the old PO1 teaching us about the types of radiation and the damage they cause, said, "Now the real BAD one of all these is them gamma rays. They'll eat up your corpsuckles [sic]."

As for protection against this stuff, my aluminum foil hat, combined with the aluminum sheets inside my shorts and under my hubcaps, seem to do the trick!

[arlo 0]

gamma radiation penetrates the skin regardless. skin stops alpha particles, but betas might slide thru (plastic can stop beta from entering the eyes - hence the plastic googles). the problem with alphas and betas came if you ingested them somehow.

when i worked as an operator at a nuke plant, we would use lead shielding (to shield the sources) in radiation areas to minimize our exposure to the gamma radiation. the other two methods used were time (minimizing your stay time) and distance (radiation levels decrease the further away from the source you are).

so i guess what i'm saying is that the skin detox sounds great, but it won't do anything to stop the gamma radiation from penetrating your skin.

arlo

p.s. to throw things into perspective: a person would receive more radiation exposure from a single panoramic x-ray than i would get in a year at the plant. thought nugget. go easy on the x-rays if you can.

[rasmack 0]

Quote

so i guess what i'm saying is that the skin detox sounds great, but it won't do anything to stop the gamma radiation from penetrating your skin.

Well, gammas are not that dangerous precisely because they pass right through you. What is really dangerous is alpha and beta radioactive dust that makes its way into the body. I could perhaps understand this as a means to remove radioactive dust but that is about it.

HF #682, Team Dirty Sanchez #227
“I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.”
- Not quite Oscar Wilde...

[arlo 0]

yep, that's why i mentioned ingestion of alphas and betas.

gamma harm comes from the ionization that occurs as it's passing thru that nice, soft tissue. i believe that gamma radiation IS harmful and does injure cells and tissue because of its high energy ionization...

but hey, that's just me.

arlo

edited to add:

if you really wanted to find out how much radiation dose you recieved, you could always buy a TLD (thermoluminescent device) which has 3 little "windows" to record the 3 types you may or may not have been exposed to. that way you could find out how much dose is received while skydiving.