My rough understanding is that 1) electric shocks are caused by rapid movement of electrons through parts of our body and 2) ionizing radiation is damaging because it creates charged particles, including electrons, that can destructively impact molecules in our cells. How then does radiation damage medically differ from electric damage?
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It takes [EXTREMELY high frequency electromagnetic radiation to be ionizing.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EM-spectrum.svg) most electric shocks are not from things that contain sufficient frequencies to cause ionizing damage so there is no “radiation poisoning”
Under the most normal circumstances, no.
Ionizing radiation is problematic because it “ionizes”, meaning that it has enough energy for electrons to leave their atoms, and thus creating ions of unbalanced charges. This is particularly harmful for humans because our DNA is easily damaged by this ions, as molecules in DNA are very loosely bind to each other and ions easily break apart these weak bonds.
There are several different kinds of radiation, the first one being electromagnetic radiation, which are photons. In order for it to be ionizing, the frequency would need to be very high. The higher the frequency, the smaller the wavelength (due to the speed of light is constant regardless of frequency). Ionizing radiation is any wavelength **smaller than around 200 nm**.
Any electrical application that we use isn’t capable of generating wavelengths anywhere this small. To put it in comparison, the 60 hz AC frequency that our electric grid uses has a wavelength of thousands of kilometers. Even the highest frequency electrical circuits, say 5 GHz in computer CPUs have wavelengths of a couple of centimeters. So pretty much no electrical application will have wavelengths nowhere small enough to have ionizing radiation poisoning problems at all.
I think you may have a misunderstanding of electrical shocks and ionization. Just because you pushed a current through your body in an electrical shock does not mean you ionized any molecules in your cells. You see, electric current isn’t ionizing anything (for the most part), it is simply moving electrons down a path. As soon as one electron leaves an atom, another electron enters and takes its place. There is no ionizing going on (for the most part).
I say “for the most part” because there could be tiny amounts of capacitances, which are accumulated charges which would be tiny amounts of ions. But this is not a problem because electrons flow around the water in your body and are nowhere near your DNA. It will not damage your DNA nor cause cancer, but there is a caveat.
The caveat is that electric shocks generate a ton of heat. So electric damage to your cells is a heat problem, like getting burned. You get burned, just like if you touch anything too hot. But there is evidence that repeated burns does cause cancer. It likely has something to do with the way your cells regenerate in the healing process.
Source: I’m an electrical engineer.
While it is not a shock to the body, the radiation emitted by the arc during welding is heavy in the ultraviolet range and will damage the skin and eyes.
And here’s me assuming if anything electrical was going to mess with your body it’d be an electric blanket. Constant electro-magnetic field. Not saying it does hurt you but I wouldn’t even put intermittent electric shocks or cell phone radiation in the same category as something like an electric heating pad.
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