22 replies to this topic

[solbanger]

Hi I've been wondering about how to tackle the lifetime radioactive burden that people accumulate over time? From what I'm familar with it builds over time and there's nothing you can do about it. It comes from different sources like CT scans, cosmic radiation from plane flights, living near radon gas etc. Not counting cigarettes, the general public's biggest exposure seems to be from our own medical scan devices such as mammograms. 

 

This came to mind when I recently went to a new dentist and he ordered yet another set of xrays. I find that dentists are gung-ho about firing away those xray machines as my previous dentist would order them every year! Later he told me I absorbed about 50 microsieverts of radiation from the 3d and panoramic scans. I just wondered why he felt so non-chalant in exposing me to that?

 

I was wondering, if we start living past 100 how would we address this ever accumulating radioactive burden? Has this issue been addressed? Thanks.

[Danail Bulgaria]

@solbanger unfortunately in some countries the ensurance is paying the dental care only after representing before and after panoramic x-ray of the jaws. This is entirely because of money, and very often has nothing to do with the need of x-rays. Maybe if you decide to pay for the treatment, instead to use your dental ensurance may help you avoid some panoramic x-rays.

 

Maybe you can't stop 100% the x-rays, that your body receives. What you can do is to avoid it when possible. Prefer the MRI instead og CT scan.

 

I don't know of a way to avoid the cosmic x-rays.

[Kalliste]

 

Hi I've been wondering about how to tackle the lifetime radioactive burden that people accumulate over time? From what I'm familar with it builds over time and there's nothing you can do about it. It comes from different sources like CT scans, cosmic radiation from plane flights, living near radon gas etc. Not counting cigarettes, the general public's biggest exposure seems to be from our own medical scan devices such as mammograms. 

 

This came to mind when I recently went to a new dentist and he ordered yet another set of xrays. I find that dentists are gung-ho about firing away those xray machines as my previous dentist would order them every year! Later he told me I absorbed about 50 microsieverts of radiation from the 3d and panoramic scans. I just wondered why he felt so non-chalant in exposing me to that?

 

I was wondering, if we start living past 100 how would we address this ever accumulating radioactive burden? Has this issue been addressed? Thanks.

 

You have the power to say no to x-rays. Ask them to take them once every 3 years. That is enough if you have good habits. Clean the approximal rooms of the teeth every day, use 0.2 % fluoride rinse every day, use an electric brush.

 

If we start to live more than 100 years this will not be an issue. We will use plasmids or whatever to repair the nDNA and the mtDNA and maybe we will use designer antioxidants to prevent the issue from ever starting.

[Antonio2014]

There are much more mutations from other causes than from radiactivity.

 

http://www.eurekaler...du-jc030915.php

 

 

Not counting cigarettes, the general public's biggest exposure seems to be from our own medical scan devices such as mammograms.

 

Cigarettes aren't so radiactive. And no, biggest exposure in the world is from background radiation, not from medical devices. In the US, both are similar and in Europe it varies widely from around double than background to less than 1/5 background.

 

http://en.wikipedia....round_radiation

 

Edited by Antonio2014, 16 March 2015 - 12:49 PM.

[Alvin]

If somebody has has radiation proctitis they can often get some relief by the daily use of vitamins C,E,A and a low dose of Selenium. 

 

You can look up, treating Radiation Proctitis, on line using Vitamins C,E,A and Selenium. Some article only  mention Vitamin C and E. There were clinical trial using these chemicals.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                      Alvin

[solbanger]

Actually nowadays CT scans and mammograms account for the bulk of our radiation exposure. See article.

 

Doctors and physicians are overusing them and adding a huge radiation burden to our population. I came back to this topic because I had a spine xray recently, stupidly thinking that the dosage was the same as a chest xray. I even asked the chiropractor the milliseivert dosage and he just said "trust me it's low." I went online and found out a spine xray is about the same dosage as a CT scan! I've been taking resveratrol like mad now.

 

This kind of stuff annoys me like crazy because it's totally unnecessary and the use of xray in high doses is completely antithetical to what doctors are supposed to stand for. How in the world a doctor in the 21st century could condone using an old fashioned technology known to seed cancers is beyond me. On top of that most of the lab techs assigned to the CT and xray machines often aren't properly trained, make wild assumptions about dosage or are so lazy they just toss people into the beam and turn the dial. There was one case I read where a lab tech left a three year old kid in a CT machine for two hours!! Can you imagine being that kid's father or mother, knowing that anytime in the future your kid could display cancer? And the doctors always say that the benefits of xray outweigh the risks... so you are to tell me that a person with a broken rib should be glad that they were given a vastly more severe risk to their well being 10 years down the line to preserve a small bone?! Not all cancers kill mind you, they often just eat away at a person and their wallet and leave them a husk! Is this the false equivalence we patients should have to swallow? What's up doc?

 

Ask yourself this, would you let an indifferent, gum-chewing, college age lab tech wield a high powered laser over your body? Or even a factory line chiropractor who zaps anyone who walks in the door? That's essentially the attitude with xrays, except you can't see or feel the beam. These machines are too dangerous not to have extremely low Federally mandated limits. Way too much trust has been levied to our medical industry to allow this arcane tech to flourish. I mean I've seen live video xray machines being used in chiropractic offices, it sure looks cool to see a skeleton move but the patient must've been bombarded with a lifetime of rays! Insanity! That chiropractor should be tried for malpractice. Maybe even murder.

 

There's actually few if any real reasons to use radiation scans since we have perfectly fine ultrasound and MRI technology. The public doesn't really know the risks of xrays and the doctors base their confidence in the machines based on foolishly derived methodologies. So that's why you have naive patients walking into the firing zone of xray blasts courtesy of Dr. Blankstare. If you look into the justification for xrays you'll find that the studies compare xray dose limits with annual exposure limits.  For instance an energy state fired in one second that would be equivalent to a years worth of radiation is considered a relatively low dose... but that's a horrible equivalence. That's like saying being hit with 50 rocks at the same time is equivalent to being hit with one rock over 50 days. What do you think your body could handle better?

 

These annual exposure limits were determined by the population of WWII survivors around Nagasaki, they estimated that one mile away from the blast the survivors received a dosage of about 3-5 msv/hr and their incidence of cancer only went marginally up. So they figured that your average human could tolerate a similar amount. But remember this is per hour, not per second... and the kicker is that nowadays some people are getting like 6-10 msv per CT scan! You could receive less radiation being 1 mile away from an atomic explosion than you would if you got three spinal xray sets done! Mental cases must be running the FDA! It is totally inconceivable that radioactive pollution of this sort could be allowed in a 1st world society! Some greedy xray maker must've pushed their agenda into the medical textbooks because I cannot for the life of me understand how doctors could condone such a silent monster like xray irradiation? When did doctors agree to gamble with cancer so flippantly? If a pharmaceutical drug were to hit the market with the same effects of a high energy xray blast you would have lawsuits galore!

 

We know that the human body is designed to handle a little radiation over time, but the justifications the medical community are trying to pitch are outrageous and when you look at it carefully they are based on spurious, false equivalencies. It's as if every doctor wants to justify that new $500K scanner he/she bought as a way to indemnify them from medical lawsuits. Are these new doctors psychopaths? I believe they've grossly oversimplified the risks of xray energy diagnostics particularly for levels anywhere above .05 msv. If they were to ban all diagnostics above that level this would remove all spinal, CT scan and mammograms from the American xray diet. They should all be replaced with ultrasound or MRI.

 

Consider this: Astronauts in space are given space suits to protect them from less xray radiation in a month than what the typical kid with a bump on their head receives in a matter of seconds!! Sometimes the scan, like the one I had, was equivalent to 200 chest xrays! When did the medical community suddenly become brainless, zombified and backward? Do they have fingers in their ears or something??

 

Sorry for the rant.

 

http://well.blogs.ny...verlooked/?_r=0

 

Edited by solbanger, 27 September 2015 - 07:02 AM.

[Antonio2014]

Yeah, it's a rant. There is no useful data in it at all.

 

This is useful data, and it shows you are wrong: https://en.wikipedia...round_radiation

Edited by Antonio2014, 29 September 2015 - 10:29 AM.

[nowayout]

You can't really compare the danger of X-rays to background radiation the way you are doing.  The same dose causes more damage when delivered over a shorter period by an X-ray than when delivered over days or weeks by the background.

 

After all, a lifetime background exposure of 500 mSv or more is common and usually easily tolerated (most people don't die from radiation-related causes), whereas receiving that same dose over a day will cause serious radiation poisoning. 

 

Similarly, though a dental X-ray is a lower dose than the typical background dose we get in a day, that X-ray exposure is delivered in a fraction of a second, which makes it many, many times more intense than the background exposure.  As an analogy, take all the light that would normally enter your eye in a day and instead flash all that energy onto your retina in a millisecond and see what happens to your eyesight.

Edited by nowayout, 23 October 2015 - 11:02 PM.

[phix]

I agree that you cannot directly compare radiation exposures ignoring their time spreads, it should be obvious. OTOH, it is not so obvious that all radiation events cause a net cumulative damage. This assumption has been questioned on the basis of possible hormetic effects at low doses through selective beneficial apoptosis and the activation of several repair mechanisms. The issue is controversial but you can find a lot of papers challenging the linear no-threshold model. Note that the radiation dose from a CT scan can be several thousand times higher than one from dental X-rays. So the effects could differ substantially, not only quantitatively, but there could be even more important qualitative differences.  

 

It should be also noted that most of the attention is focused on cancer risk, but we cannot discard other possible ill effects. Interestingly, I have seen however studies where the incidence of some cancer types was significantly elevated, yet the mortality from both cancer and non-cancer causes was lower. This could be compatible with the hormesis hypothesis.

[YOLF]

 

I agree that you cannot directly compare radiation exposures ignoring their time spreads, it should be obvious. OTOH, it is not so obvious that all radiation events cause a net cumulative damage. This assumption has been questioned on the basis of possible hormetic effects at low doses through selective beneficial apoptosis and the activation of several repair mechanisms. The issue is controversial but you can find a lot of papers challenging the linear no-threshold model. Note that the radiation dose from a CT scan can be several thousand times higher than one from dental X-rays. So the effects could differ substantially, not only quantitatively, but there could be even more important qualitative differences.  

 

It should be also noted that most of the attention is focused on cancer risk, but we cannot discard other possible ill effects. Interestingly, I have seen however studies where the incidence of some cancer types was significantly elevated, yet the mortality from both cancer and non-cancer causes was lower. This could be compatible with the hormesis hypothesis.

 

Could this also have been that the radiation has to pass through the skin, so it's the most damaged organ, and also, IIRC the most survivable type of cancer (melanoma) due to ease of accessibility and LN2 treatments?

 

Can you explain further Antonio? There is alot of info there, care to tell us what part is wrong?

 

Well, it's clear. The first sentence is wrong and also the rest (that is an explanation of the first sentence).

 

 

Phix's and Nowayout's posts seem to suggest otherwise IMO. 

[resveratrol_guy]

I created a separate thread for the discussion of radiation mitigation supplements and practices, in the context of required CT scans.

 

My 2 cents... we also need to be wary of MRIs, and not because of any dubious risk from radio waves, but rather, due to the nephrological risks of contrast agents. The risk of contrast-induced nephropathy in turn depends on which agent is injected, if any, and therefore which organ is being studied. Fortunately, this risk is easily mitigated (e.g. by drinking enough distilled water at the appropriate time), but most patients are uninformed of the problem.

 

There is also a risk of false negatives, particularly in cancer, where MRI is somewhat less sensitive than CT (although the gap is closing with higher-tesla magnets and newer contrast agents). So, by default, your actual risk of dying from cancer could be higher from MRI in some cases.

 

That said, I think frequent (say, annual) MRIs would help detect various aggressive digestive cancers before they manifest symptoms; such a preventative imaging strategy would be unwise with abdominal CT on account of the radiation. But again, we're back to the economics: at least in more regulated countries, one needs a prescription for such studies, regardless of insurance status. And no insurance company is going to pay for a scan without symptoms. So much for prudent monitoring. Time to start Bahamas Imaging Inc.

 

And yeah, radiation damage is highly dependent upon power density and target tissue, given a particular level of total absorbed energy. Comparisons to equal amounts of background are misleading. That much is obvious.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 30 October 2015 - 11:19 AM.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Peope, as general you post nice things.

 

If you want a proffesional opinion on that, you need a radio-biologyst. Everything, that you post and probabbly you will post further is already well known in the radiation biology.

 

So, if you know some one, who is a radiation biologyst, now is the time to invite him/her in this topic.

 

As far as I know, the modern radiobiologysts claim, that there is no such thing as a safe dose of radiation, and that each dose of radiaton can provoke a cancer growth. Simply the chances are smaller with the smaller doses. Plus they claim, that the damage is cumulative, in terms that the changes in the genome that happen locally in the rdiated cells is permanent and is accumulating. I can't provide ypu citings, however.

 

 

For the annual full body MRI - it is a nice thing, but its cost most probabbly will be several salaries if yours.

Do you have some idea  how it can be made cheaper?

[YOLF]

I created a separate thread for the discussion of radiation mitigation supplements and practices, in the context of required CT scans.

 

My 2 cents... we also need to be wary of MRIs, and not because of any dubious risk from radio waves, but rather, due to the nephrological risks of contrast agents. The risk of contrast-induced nephropathy in turn depends on which agent is injected, if any, and therefore which organ is being studied. Fortunately, this risk is easily mitigated (e.g. by drinking enough distilled water at the appropriate time), but most patients are uninformed of the problem.

 

There is also a risk of false negatives, particularly in cancer, where MRI is somewhat less sensitive than CT (although the gap is closing with higher-tesla magnets and newer contrast agents). So, by default, your actual risk of dying from cancer could be higher from MRI in some cases.

 

That said, I think frequent (say, annual) MRIs would help detect various aggressive digestive cancers before they manifest symptoms; such a preventative imaging strategy would be unwise with abdominal CT on account of the radiation. But again, we're back to the economics: at least in more regulated countries, one needs a prescription for such studies, regardless of insurance status. And no insurance company is going to pay for a scan without symptoms. So much for prudent monitoring. Time to start Bahamas Imaging Inc.

 

And yeah, radiation damage is highly dependent upon power density and target tissue, given a particular level of total absorbed energy. Comparisons to equal amounts of background are misleading. That much is obvious.

That would be fMRIs rather than MRIs if I'm not mistaken... I had a regular MRI, definitely didn't get any contrast agents.

 

But what's the solution for aggressive digestive cancers or even those one might have had for decades? I'm pretty sure it's not a very happy or satisfying outcome. Maybe when they can just print you a new one and replace the entire organ with a young healthy one... but otherwise it's cheaper to use on demand cryopreservation if one doesn't mind waiting for reanimation. Not sure why we bother with all of this stuff that rips your guts out and leaves you with permanent "butt hurt" in this case. Though I suppose if we can figure out how to activate and support a response mechanism that would make the x-ray'd area more youthful... then it actually starts to become what I would call medicine... 

[YOLF]

Peope, as general you post nice things.

 

If you want a proffesional opinion on that, you need a radio-biologyst. Everything, that you post and probabbly you will post further is already well known in the radiation biology.

 

So, if you know some one, who is a radiation biologyst, now is the time to invite him/her in this topic.

 

As far as I know, the modern radiobiologysts claim, that there is no such thing as a safe dose of radiation, and that each dose of radiaton can provoke a cancer growth. Simply the chances are smaller with the smaller doses. Plus they claim, that the damage is cumulative, in terms that the changes in the genome that happen locally in the rdiated cells is permanent and is accumulating. I can't provide ypu citings, however.

 

 

For the annual full body MRI - it is a nice thing, but its cost most probabbly will be several salaries if yours.

Do you have some idea  how it can be made cheaper?

MRIs that don't involve contrast dyes sound like a good idea. I'm not aware of there being any damage done from them. So a full body MRI might make sense... it just needs to be made into an assembly line process. Just wait on line with none of the techs leaving their stations to attend to other things and put a speaker in the room with video instructions to get people into the machine. 

 

Seivtcho, you're a Dentist or Oral Surgeon, is that correct?

 

I do remember having some students who were studying Radiology a few years ago in Germany, not remembering their names though...

[Danail Bulgaria]

Yes, I am a dentist with surgical speciality (maxillo-facial surgery). 

 

The costs of the MRI units themselves is huge. They literary cost more than a million dollars. 

[resveratrol_guy]

@ seivtcho: Nice to have a maxillofacial surgeon here. No doubt you encounter this issue with maxillary CT scans everyday. It's a difficult tradeoff for the patient. And to answer your question, if I knew how to make MRIs cheaper, I would have bought my own private island by now!

 

@ YOLF: Nope, fMRIs are different. Those are used to see metabolism occurring in real time, usually in the brain. They can be used to allow vegetative patients to "talk" by imagining different activities (e.g. playing tennis for "yes" or driving a car for "no"). "Normal" MRIs sometimes have contrast, sometimes not. Contrast simply makes the blood vessels easier to see. (It's usually an inert gadolinium compound with some degree of kidney hazards.) The solution for digestive cancers, at least for now, is prevention, for example, this thread. But catching a tumor in stage 1, prior to metastatis, also radically improves survival rates. BTW I really like your "assembly line" idea for annual preventative MRIs. This is exactly how laser eye surgery works now, which has made it widely affordable. But at least in the US, you need a presciption to get an MRI -- even if you pay for it yourself! This is idiotic because you can't get one until you show symptoms, which in the case of digestive cancers is often too late. I'm "lucky" enough to have had enough disgestive issues that I can get one every year. It's coming time soon, so it will be interesting to see how my diet has affected the pipes...

 

[nowayout]

There is also a risk of false negatives, ...

 

As well as the risk of false positives, whose treatment causes more harm than benefit.  See, for example, the recently updated calculations on prostate and breast cancer screening, where the risk-benefit analysis has been pointing toward recommending less screening, not more.  There are real physical and mental morbidities associated with false positives and biopsy, as well as the newer understanding that many "positives" are really negatives (tumors that grow and shrink by themselves) for which current treatments are more harmful than no treatment.  

[phix]

@YOLF: I am not an expert, I just researched the topic a little bit a few months ago. The cancer types that first come to mind when I think of radiation exposures are thyroid and leukemia. The following review papers examined the risk induced by several radiation sources and exposure patterns for different cancer types. The aforementioned types do rank on top in the cohort of Japanese atomic bomb survivors, along with female breast cancer. The increase in skin cancer risk is a bit smaller but still pretty significant. The incidence profile will vary in other cases that may particularly affect some specific organs.

 

Wakeford R. The cancer epidemiology of radiation. Oncogene. 2004;23:6404–6428

 

Gilbert ES. Ionizing Radiation and Cancer Risks: What Have We Learned From Epidemiology? International journal of radiation biology. 2009;85(6):467-482

 

 

The studies above acknowledge the uncertainty in the case of low-dose radiation exposures, particularly in regard to the quantification of the effect and the validity of extrapolations from higher doses using linear models. But whatever the form of the curve, there seems to be an association with higher cancer risk for acute doses in excess of tens of mSv, the same order of magnitude of a full body CT scan. 

 

On the other hand, and in line with my previous comment, this study found that a continuos radiation exposure for 5 weeks at a level 400 times greater than natural background did not cause any significant genotoxic effect in mice. Note that this is still a very low dose rate (2 µGy/min) when compared to a CT scan. As the authors remarked, the same total radiation amount (around 105 mGy) would have caused permanent dna damage if given all at once. 

 

Olipitz W, Wiktor-Brown D, Shuga J, et al. Integrated Molecular Analysis Indicates Undetectable Change in DNA Damage in Mice after Continuous Irradiation at ~ 400-fold Natural Background Radiation. Environmental Health Perspectives. 2012;120(8):1130-1136. 

 

MIT News: A new look at prolonged radiation exposure

 

 

[phix]

Beyond the guide provided by epidemiological studies, it would be nice if we could directly measure and track the damage on our own nuclear DNA in a convenient way. It seems that the traditional methods involve slow and costly manual procedures in a qualified lab. This group has developed a fully automated high-throughput system to screen people more efficiently in case of a large-scale radiation emergency using a single drop of blood. It is not as convenient as an instant-reading portable meter that you can carry around, like for instance the case of glucometers, but still a step forward. Note that high-throughput does not necessarily imply low waiting times, which in this system can be up to 3 days depending on the biodosimetric assay used.  

 

Garty G, Chen Y, Salerno A, et al. THE RABIT: A RAPID AUTOMATED BIODOSIMETRY TOOL FOR RADIOLOGICAL TRIAGE. Health physics. 2010;98(2):209-217. doi:10.1097/HP.0b013e3181ab3cb6.

 

The system includes 2 different well-established biomarkers of DNA damage. One is effective only for 36 hours post exposure, while the other can be used for months afterwards. The greater time frame of the latter is considered an advantage in the paper since it does not require early acquisition of blood samples after a radiation exposure. But I guess that the combination* of the two assays could be used to measure the more recent vs older cumulative damage when tracking the cumulative damage of prolonged or repeated exposures. An important limitation however is that the system is only sensitive to high dose exposures (over 0.8 Gy).

 

Finally, I will mention that there have been recurrent news echoed in these forums that question the significance of the cumulative nuclear DNA damage in the normal process of aging. Here is a relevant sample in chronological order (and increasing degree of skepticism):

 

Is Nuclear Damage a Cause of Aging?

A Skeptical View of Mitochondrial DNA Damage and Aging

Weak Evidence Against a Significant Role for Nuclear DNA Damage in Aging

You Can't Just Boost DNA Repair and Expect It to Extend Life

 

 

* Note that the  system as described in the paper does not allow the simultaneous use of the two assays. 

Edited by phix, 03 November 2015 - 11:38 AM.

[Danail Bulgaria]

What causes aging is uncertain at the moment (2015).

 

What is certain, without a doubt, is that the X,Y and gamma-ray radiation causes cancer.

 

So, if you want to live longer, you again have to avoid radiation as much as possible.

 

And here comes the question where is the border between reasonable prevention and the psychopathy. And where is the border between the needed treatment and the useless things.

Should we walk on the streets with radiation suits? because of the natural radiation? If so, then the psychos are right, and we are wrong. You need a radiation biologyst to say you that.

Should everybody who has hit his head be made a CT scan, as suggested in the standarts for the western countries? (1 CT scan = 360 x-rays of the brain from all angles). I have hit my head as a child hundreds of times, and as an adult tens of times and I am still alive. Should I have had tens of CT scans done so far? This is exactly the art of the medicine - to determine for who really has to make the CT and for who doesn't. Western countries are trying to standartize things, that cant be standartized. I was stunned to read myself that in the western countries standarts everyone, who has hit the head has to make a CT scan of the head. I didnt believe it until I red it. I remember once in the neurosugery office came 3 guys from Great Britain and insisted heavily to be made CT of one of the guys, who has hit his head.The neurosurgeon explained them several times, that this is not needed from her point of view and in her experience. Even though, they were so insisting, that they simply didnt calm down until the guy made a completely useless CT of his had, in order to see what the neurosurgeon told him - that everything is ok. Was he right? Was he not? What is this guy guarantee, that he will not receive bleeding one day after the trauma? Does he have to made a CT each day for several days? To be absolutely shure you know?

[YOLF]

@ seivtcho: Nice to have a maxillofacial surgeon here. No doubt you encounter this issue with maxillary CT scans everyday. It's a difficult tradeoff for the patient. And to answer your question, if I knew how to make MRIs cheaper, I would have bought my own private island by now!

 

@ YOLF: Nope, fMRIs are different. Those are used to see metabolism occurring in real time, usually in the brain. They can be used to allow vegetative patients to "talk" by imagining different activities (e.g. playing tennis for "yes" or driving a car for "no"). "Normal" MRIs sometimes have contrast, sometimes not. Contrast simply makes the blood vessels easier to see. (It's usually an inert gadolinium compound with some degree of kidney hazards.) The solution for digestive cancers, at least for now, is prevention, for example, this thread. But catching a tumor in stage 1, prior to metastatis, also radically improves survival rates. BTW I really like your "assembly line" idea for annual preventative MRIs. This is exactly how laser eye surgery works now, which has made it widely affordable. But at least in the US, you need a presciption to get an MRI -- even if you pay for it yourself! This is idiotic because you can't get one until you show symptoms, which in the case of digestive cancers is often too late. I'm "lucky" enough to have had enough disgestive issues that I can get one every year. It's coming time soon, so it will be interesting to see how my diet has affected the pipes...

 

Do GI MRIs require contrast dyes? I was previously aware of the Gadolinium, thanks for reminding me. What would have been the type of scan where a radioactive solution is used?

[YOLF]

@ seivtcho: Nice to have a maxillofacial surgeon here. No doubt you encounter this issue with maxillary CT scans everyday. It's a difficult tradeoff for the patient. And to answer your question, if I knew how to make MRIs cheaper, I would have bought my own private island by now!

 

I could try a redesign of the process if anyone has a background in this. I can probably cut the cost by 60% just off the top of my head. Probably more. Actually, would love to get into this part of the industry. So are annual MRIs safe? How much damage is actually done , if any?

[Danail Bulgaria]

The current view is that the MRIs are absolutely safe if you don't have an electric device in your body, for example a pace-maker in the heart. The reason is that the big electromagnetic disturbances interfare with the pace-maker and may make your heart to stop.

Otherwise the MRI should be harmless.