• Question: Why does exposure to radiation cause cancer?

    Asked by matthewb to Alex, Jools, Lynz, Matt, Rika on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Chandrika Nair

      Chandrika Nair answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      exposure to radiation causes damage to your DNA leading to mutations. when an important gene that regulates growth of your cells gets mutated this can lead to cancer (eg: if the gene that stops your cells from dividing all the time becomes mutated, then the cells continually divide until they become a tumour.

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