The Earth is radioactive and radiation is neither bad nor entirely harmful. Life itself exists through the electrical exchange between the environment and living beings. The knowledge of its existence and how these conditioning factors can affect us is essential to create healthy environments.
To create projects with a comprehensive vision of the holistic design and wellness, balance between the living creature, the inhabited space and the environment is necessary. Therefore, it is important to take into account natural influences (the environmental impact of the place) and artificial influences (the impact generated by man).
With a view to elucidating this topic, we have created a couple of articles that will help us understand the importance of radiation for our health.
What is radiation?
Radiation it is a force of the natural energy that surrounds us. Radiation is everywhere: all around us, inside us, outside us, beneath our feet and above the world we live in. It is a part of our natural world that has been here since the birth of our planet and universe. Every living thing, always, has been and continues to be exposed to radiation.
How do radiations originate?
Generally, there are two main categories of radiation sources:
Natural source radiation
Natural background radiation includes radiation produced by the sun, lightning, primordial radioisotopes or supernova explosions, etc. It can be cosmic or terrestrial radiation.
Radiation from artificial sources
Artificial sources are those produced by human technological development. They include medical uses of radiation, nuclear test fallout, industrial uses of radiation, communication antennae, electrical systems for residential construction, and the use of electromagnetic devices. The dose or exposure time to these radiations is what can define it as a toxic substance.
Are radiations dangerous to health?
For over a hundred years, people have lived under the belief that electricity and radioactivity were harmless to humans and the planet. The only way to know the impact of all these influences is to carry out an environmental measurement of the space that is inhabited or intended to be built.
When used correctly, electromagnetic fields greatly improve our quality of life, health and well-being. However, above certain levels, These fields can be harmful to health and affect the human body in different ways depending on the equation: frequency, intensity, exposure time and the sensitivity of each person. This multifactorial condition and multisystemic of the environment can generate many reactions, annoyances or even illnesses for the inhabitants of houses, offices, hotels, hospitals, shops and schools. The totality of environmental exposures experienced by a living being throughout its life is defined as the “Exposome”.
«The dose makes the poison.” Paracelsus. Father of Toxicology, 1493 – 1541
So the first step towards this vital renewal to create healthy environments is the holistic conception of our home or workplace: an advanced design concept where before starting to work with what we see –the functionality and beauty of the space– we study and analyse what we cannot see – natural and artificial electromagnetic fields – in order to be able to intervene in potential negative spatial influences that can affect people's physical, mental and emotional health that inhabit it.
Why does radiation affect humans?
Human beings consider the senses to be a gateway to the outside world. Through them, he explores the environment and obtains information about it for his survival. The human body is full of natural radars or sensory receptors which detect any stimulus in the environment and send it to the brain, translated into an electrical signal. Human beings are beings bioelectric y as such, driver of electricity. Ionic currents exist across cell membranes and intracellular and extracellular body fluids, especially in nerve and muscle cells, with which its magnetic field is associated.
Radiation, both natural and artificial, has a direct effect because it reaches the cells. The cell is an electromagnetic resonator capable of receiving and emitting high-frequency vibrations, a capacity thanks to which are generated the metabolic processes of the organism.
Furthermore, science has recently confirmede that humans have another sense, magnetoreception. This has been made possible thanks to research in neuroscience, geophysics and neuroengineering, after detecting that people's brain waves respond to the geomagnetic field. Our animal ancestry maintains that natural sensors of the geomagnetic field should also be present in human senses and, of course, be taken into account in the architecture we inhabit.
Conditions such as insomnia, stress, fatigue, anxiety, lack of energy, allergies, and illnesses such as electrosensitivity, cancer, and even infertility these are society's problems that are on the rise. These illnesses not only depend on the way of life, but also of the environment that surrounds people. Greater attention should be paid to spaces where “essential” activities such as sleeping, creating, socialising, working and resting take place; and where 90% of one’s time is spent.
What are the types of radiation?
Depending on their frequency and energy, electromagnetic radiation can be classified into “ionising» and «non-ionising». In this article, we will discuss “ionising” radiation and in another article, will be developed “non-ionising” radiation”.
Ionising Radiation:
Ionising radiation corresponds to extremely high-frequency electromagnetic signals. Alpha, beta and gamma rays are ionising radiations that they transmit enough energy to biological systems to break atomic bonds and split molecules into positive and negative ions. This phenomenon is known as «ionisation», it has an impact at the atomic level and, with chronic doses, can be carcinogenic, damaging DNA.
Alpha rays
These are positively charged particles that are unable to pass through a sheet of paper or human skin and are stopped within a few centimetres of air. However, if an alpha-particle emitter enters the body, it can be extremely harmful. The most common source of this type of radiation is radon. Radon is a toxic gas released by the earth in areas containing granite or compounds of uranium and thorium; it can contaminate both air and water. It accounts for 50% of the natural radiation a human being is exposed to each year, according to the “European Atlas of Natural Radiation”.
Beta rays
They are particles with much greater penetrating power than alpha particles; they are highly energetic electrons released from inside a nucleus. The beta particle is therefore the electron that is expelled from the nucleus at high speed. However, they only penetrate about a centimetre into human flesh. Although beta particles have less ionising power than alpha particles, they are dangerous and contact with the body must be avoided.
Gamma rays
It is a radiation that, having neither mass nor charge, has a high penetrating power, so much so that it can penetrate through buildings and bodies. These high-frequency gamma rays have enough energy to ionise living tissue and molecules in the body, and can cause damage to important macromolecules such as DNA inside cells, which causes cancer by producing free radicals. Gamma rays carry a large amount of energy that can even travel through thin lead and thick concrete for many metres.
These Gamma rays they are those emitted by the cosmos and the Earth vertically through fault lines, underground watercourses, and the grids known as global networks, which constitute channels for the circulation of electromagnetic energy (Hartmann, Curry, Benker, and Peyré lines). This accounts for 20% of the natural radiation to which humans are exposed each year, according to the “European Atlas of Natural Radiation”.
Everyone continuously receives gamma rays emitted by geological disturbances or natural radioactive materials existing in the earth. Building materials, if they are extracted of the earth, are also radioactive, meaning that people are subjected to ionising radiation both outdoors and indoors. The amount of radiation received depends on the type of rocks that make up the ground and the materials with which the buildings are constructed.
Knowledge of how all these radiations behave helps us to avoid these ionising sources when creating healthy environments. This can be measured using various pieces of technical and specialised engineering equipment.
How can ionising radiation affect health?
The risks of ionising radiation are known to human health. Among the sources of ionising radiation of natural origin, radon gas is by far the most important nowadays. And according to the European EURATOM-2013 directive, it is mandatory to measure radon concentration in new builds. In December 2022, the Regulations on health protection against ionising radiation, approved by Royal Decree 783/2001, were published in the BOE (Official State Gazette). We will discuss radon in more depth in another, more specialised article.
People may be exposed to ionising radiation at home or in public spaces, at work or in a medical setting. It is known that beyond certain thresholds, radiation can affect the functioning of organs and tissues. The probability of damage occurring is proportional to the radiation dose and exposure time. The risk is greater for children, adolescents, women and sick people, as they are much more sensitive to any kind of environmental stress.
There are different types of radiation exposure: through inhalation, ingestion, internal or external exposure. Air, water, light, food, geographical location, and the earth are key to living in a more or less polluted environment.
We want to provide tools and create prevention strategies so that you expose your health, and that of your family, customers or workers, as little as possible to these types of physical agents that can cause symptoms of ill health in the short, medium or long term.
What is Evalore's role?
Our objective is, first, to set out all this information in a clear and orderly way, since it is difficult to access or understand how health can relate to the built environment. Second, we can propose effective strategies for designing spaces that minimise exposure to this type of radiation electromagnetic of the entire population and the environment. The key is to measure the space and its surroundings before making any architectural or design decisions, and we can help you with this.
En Evaluate We are pioneers in Spain in the development of environmental consultancy processes for the real estate and office sector. Our projects are often framed within the context of international environmental certifications such as LEED, BREEAM, WELL or Passivhaus. The result is an optimised project, in terms of both environmental performance and cost.
Marta Ribas, Interior Spaces Health Designer and Consultant
Founder of lacasamadre.com and collaborator of Espacios Evalore SLP
