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Journalism of Courage
Here’s another reason why you should shed the flab — undergoing a CT scan can take a toll on your health,a new study has warned.
To get a clear picture when performing a CT scan on obese people,radiologists usually use a higher dose of X-rays than they would give someone of average weight.
Now,a team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York says that this may be harmful as CT scans expose the internal organs of men with obesity to around 62 per cent more radiation on average than the organs of men of healthy weight.
For their study,researchers have developed computer models of various bodies,some of a healthy weight,others morbidly obese. These models were then fed into a program simulating the effects of radiation on human tissue.
The team found that CT scans expose the internal organs of men with obesity to around 62 per cent more radiation on average than the organs of men of a healthy weight receive.
For women,the dose was 59 per cent higher in cases of obesity,the ‘New Scientist’ reported.
CT scans have been shown to slightly increase a person’s risk of developing cancer. Because obese people receive more radiation,they are 60 per cent more likely than those of average weight to develop the disease,but the risk remains small,Xie George Xu,who led the team,said.
The findings have been published in the ‘Physics in Medicine and Biology’ journal.
