[ RadSafe ] Re: Radon and Lung Cancer

[Otto Raabe]

At 08:36 AM 2/13/2007, Wesley wrote:
>I would like to remind you of my paper in Health Physics (October 2003):
>EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATIONS AMONG LUNG CANCER, RADON EXPOSURE AND ELEVATION
>ABOVE SEA LEVEL - A REASSESSMENT OF COHEN'S COUNTY LEVEL RADON STUDY
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Dear Wes,

I believe that the cellular oxygen tension is about the same no matter what 
altitude you reside. If you grow up at high altitude you will develop 
bigger more efficient lungs, If you move to a higher altitude you will have 
an increase in red-blood cell concentration. In any case, at the cellular 
level there will be about the same biologically balanced oxygen tension. No 
radiation effects are expected.

There is a general correlation between higher radon and altitude.  That is 
somewhat of a coincidence.  There is also an inverse correlation between 
latitude and oxygen concentration. A mathematical regression will treat 
decreased oxygen and increased radon as somewhat mathematically correlated 
even though they are not related, but decreased oxygen is not necessarily a 
causative factor in this relationship. It is just a partial surrogate for 
increased radon.

When Prof. Cohen evaluated just the former Confederate (southern) States 
where there are few high altitude Counties, he got the same inverse 
relationship as for the whole nation. Therefore, I concluded altitude is 
not a directly important factor in the inverse radon -lung cancer relationship.

Otto


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Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
Center for Health & the Environment
University of California
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
E-Mail: ograabe at ucdavis.edu
Phone: (530) 752-7754   FAX: (530) 758-6140
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