a hot spring including... radium!

[miyakoji]

I like to check out Okayama Prefecture's videos on youtube.  They have a particularly interesting series on Okayama dialect.  They also have tourism-related videos, one of which is brand new as of right about now:

 

 

Sure enough, the alkaline water of onsen includes... radium.  I did a bit of a double take on this, then went and looked it up.  Sure enough, I find this http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%94%BE%E5%B0%84%E8%83%BD%E6%B3%89 .  Wut?  Everyone I know tries to get radon and radium out of their environment!

[scott]

Exposure to radon' date=' a process known as radiation hormesis, has been suggested to mitigate auto-immune diseases such as arthritis.[65'][66] As a result, in the late 20th century and early 21st century, some "health mines" were established in Basin, Montana  which attracted people seeking relief from health problems such as arthritis through limited exposure to radioactive mine water and radon. The practice is controversial because of the "well-documented ill effects of high-dose radiation on the body."[67] Radon has nevertheless been found to induce beneficial long-term effects.[68]

 

Radioactive water baths have been applied since 1906 in Jáchymov, Czech Republic, but even before radon discovery they were used in Bad Gastein, Austria. Radium-rich springs are also used in traditional Japanese onsen in Misasa, Tottori Prefecture. Drinking therapy is applied in Bad Brambach, Germany. Inhalation therapy is carried out in Gasteiner-Heilstollen, Austria, in Świeradów-Zdrój, Czerniawa-Zdrój, Kowary, Lądek Zdrój, Poland, in Harghita Băi, Romania, and in Boulder, United States. In the United States and Europe there are several "radon spas," where people sit for minutes or hours in a high-radon atmosphere in the belief that low doses of radiation will invigorate or energize them.[66][69]

[miyakoji]

I cede this thread.

[Tenorikuma]

Keep in mind radon and radium are two completely different elements, even though both are radioactive. Radium is a mineral (metal), and radon is a gas — so if you have radon in your house, you're breathing it into your lungs every day. Even worse, radon decays into radio heavy metals which bind to air particulates and also get breathed into your lungs.

 

Mind you, I've no interest in exposing myself (ha ha) to either. Marie Curie died of cancer from her work on radium.

[scott]

I cede this thread.

 

I'm sorry; I didn't meant to discourage you. Just wanted to add to the discussion is all.

[scott]

But now that I've had a chance to see the video, I think the narrator shouldn't worry so much about radium as about helium! 

[KenS]

Although the level is low (the wikipedia article seems to say 3-50 nano Curies per kg of water, as compared to regulated amounts of radiation, which are typically in the micro Curie range, or 1000 times greater) and exposure time in a bath is limited, so it probably is relatively safe, you still wouldn't catch me doing it.

 

Radiation exposure hazard is all about probability of emission occurance and the effect of the resulting radiation on tissue.  Radium and it's decay products emit heavy beta/gamma particles, which can do a lot of damage deep inside skin.  You won't get radiation poisoning from soaking brieftly in a radium-laced bath, but if the odds are against you, you could suffer internal cell damage that plants the seed of a cancer you won't see for decades.

 

Of course, the same thing can happen standing in a public building made of granite (granite emits radiation in pico Curies per square foot, but buildings have lots of square feet). Some amount of low-level radiation is inescapable.  But why do anything to increase that for hypothesized but unproven "health effects"?