i got radiation treatment on my arm last year and i read a few things that said that radiation causes damage to the DNA cells, and that it can’t replicate? what does that even mean? does that mean that if i were to have any children, that the likelihood of them having mutations is higher or does it mean something else
In: Biology
Radiation therapy directs highly concentrated X-rays at cells. When the X-rays hit them, they deposit their energy into the cells. This causes all sorts of damage, including causing tiny breaks in DNA molecules. Broken DNA can’t do things like make proteins, or divide and create new cells, and so the cells shrink and die.
This is great if the radiation hits cancer cells, because if all the cancer cells die then a person is cured.
The trouble is, X-rays aren’t easy to aim, and cancer cells can be hard to hit. So inevitably, other, healthy cells, can get hit too. Some of them will be damaged, or die. If you have side effects like burns, nausea, numbness, and so on, it’s because healthy cells were hurt too.
>does that mean that if i were to have any children, that the likelihood of them having mutations is higher or does it mean something else
No. Unless you destroyed all of your gonads, any DNA you pass onto children will be fine. Only the cells that were hit with too much radiation were affected, and they (more likely than not) died and were cleaned up by your immune system.
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