In this article, I will address the following issues on

  • The need for air ionization
  • Radioactivity and air ions
  • The criminalization of radon

The need for air ionization

It is a widely held opinion in the acupuncture circles that acupuncture points are points of high electrical conductance. There has to be a reason why the skin has evolved to contain about four hundred acupuncture points that can conduct electricity better than the rest of the skin. If we believe that Nature does not do things without a reason, then it is reasonable to say that the points exist because the human body interacts electrically with the environment.

I am now going to put forward a hypothesis(by no means unique to me alone) on the mechanics of electrical interaction. In a previous article, I explained that when water evaporates in a sentimental fashion, the water vapor carries negatively charged ions into the air.

Each time the human lungs breathes out, the exhaled air carries away water vapor that is negatively charged. Since charges are formed in pairs, for every negative charge formed, a corresponding positive charge will also form. In the exhalation process, the positive charges are left in the human body. The charges accumulate and before we know it, we are carrying a few hundred volts in our body. On a dry day, it can go up to several thousand volts and we may not be aware of it, not until we touch a car door handle or a metal railing, and get an electric jolt! Luckily, nature has some means to address such a huge charge imbalance.

If we are walking barefoot, the feet may be able to pick up negative charges from the ground to partially neutralize our positively charged human body. Yes, it is healthy to go barefoot! However, most people go about in synthetic, electrically nonconductive foot wear, and so the voltage on the body rises. But if the air is rich in negative ions, we can breathe in negative ions, and that should help us reduce the excessive voltage. (Of course, people in the acupuncture community may prefer to think that the electrical charges enter the body through the acupuncture points in the skin and I have no problem with that line of thinking.)

Is there a danger of breathing in positive ions instead of the negative ones? Well……that would be most unlikely because we know that opposites attract. The positively charged human body would most probably repel the positive air ions and attract the negative air ions. Thus, there is no need to fear positive ions because they are unlikely to affect us. Positive air ions and negative air ions exist in an approximate 5:4 ratio in the atmosphere. Therefore, an air with a high level of positive ions is always better than an air that has less positive ions because a high level of positive ions will imply a high level of negative ions. So let’s not be afraid of the positive ions anymore, okay?

Here’s another bit of news.  While most ionizer manufacturers produce ionizers that put out ONLY negative ions in the air, a Japanese manufacturer makes ionizers that put out BOTH positive and negative ions in the air in their Plasmacluster models. And in the battle against airborne pathogens, these same Plasmacluster models have currently taken the lead over the other ionizer manufacturers. The ionizer industry is still a controversial industry, but the said Japanese manufacturer is slowly gaining respect.

Radioactivity and air ions

The main cause of air ionization is radioactivity. In modern life, radioactivity has become something of a dirty word. Now that is just sad, because without radioactivity, life as we know it may not even be possible. The food you eat and the water you drink is radioactive. In fact, you are radioactive. This is called background radiation and is no cause for concern. This radioactivity has always been there and Life has evolved because of it and not despite it as many believed.

How did this irrational fear of radioactivity come about? Probably some scientist died from overexposure to radioactivity and that led to the fear mongers having a field day in trying to ban anything radioactive. It’s like saying that a fire can gut a house, and therefore people should not have fires inside the house, not even in the kitchen stove. This kind of thinking implies a poor application of logic. If Nature did not intend for us to use logic, it would not have given us a left brain.

We know that breathing in 100% pure oxygen can kill you through oxygen toxicity, but that should not stop you from breathing air, should it? It’s all about balance. Anything good, at extreme levels will be bad. The same goes for radioactivity. At manageable levels, it is good for life. There is this propensity to label things as “good” or “bad” when what we should look for is BALANCE!

Air ions are created in pairs. In very simplistic terms, the energy released by radioactivity breaks up an air molecule into a positive and a negative ion. This radioactivity comes from two sources: the first is a radioactive gas call radon, and the second is a slew of radioactive solids such as uranium, plutonium, thorium and the short-lived radon daughters.

Air ions don’t last very long. They survive for minutes only. If the ionization level of the air inside a home is to be maintained, then there must be a source of radioactivity into the house. Fortunately, there is radon. This heavy radioactive gas comes out of the ground and flows into the house thus keeping the air alive. All soil based dust is radioactive to some extent, and any dust that is airborne can hop into a house to keep the air ionization going. However, dust particles, being solids, can be something of a health hazard if it gets stuck in the bronchial tubes and then start emitting alpha particles from radioactive decay. Perhaps that is why homemakers instinctively try to keep a house internally free of dust. Radon, being a gas, will not do as much damage as radioactive dust. However, the byproducts of its radioactive decay, the so-called radon daughters, are all solids and not gases.

So, the question being asked is, “Is radon a hero or a villain?”

Just Google for radon and you will find site after site warning you about the dangers of radon. There is a whole industry set up that is hell-bent on eradicating radon from the house in the mistaken belief that radon causes lung cancer. I am not disputing that extreme levels of radon may be harmful, but these extreme levels are found in underground mines and not in houses. If a house does not contain radon, then how is the air inside going to get ionized?

The criminalization of radon

Radon, the noble gas that keeps our air alive with its ionization ability, has been touted as being responsible for lung cancer because of some dubious “scientific studies”. Actually, long before the U.S. Surgeon General and other major health organizations came out with their ill-thought out health advisory against radon, this gas was associated with healing properties!

If radon was so dangerous, then it would be logical to think that in areas of high radon, people will be dropping like flies from lung cancer. A study in 1998 encompassing Rocky Mountain states and Gulf Coast states showed the opposite happened (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9753369). When an area with high radon levels shows a lower cancer mortality rate, it means that the earlier “scientific studies” and the reality are at odds with each other!  If I were to choose a place to live, then I would choose some place with a high radon level.

The Misasa spa area of Japan is noted for high radioactivity with radon in the drinking waters. There was apparently some concern that the people there would be exposed to health risks because of all that radiation. However, just as in America, the Japanese researchers found lower cancer rates in Misasa as compared with the rest of the country! That actually makes sense! Human beings have evolved to the top of the food chain for millions of years in an environment with radon just like the shark has evolved in the ocean environment of 3.5% salt content. We take out the salt from the water and the shark will not be happy. If we take out the radon from the air, should we not expect humans to experience the same result?

In ancient times, holy men and hermits would live in caves to meditate, and they often lived for a long time. What was the secret to their long life? We know today that caves usually will have high radon levels. Obviously, these holy men knew something that we are only starting to find out.

I would not be the first person on earth to dispute those early scientific studies attempting to link radon with cancer. I am sure that responsible scientists are already questioning how funds are being used to prove something that is the opposite of truth. However, it is going to be difficult to reverse the criminalization of radon because there is too much Big Business vested interests in the whole radon witch-hunt. Try telling Big Business that their right is wrong and they will spend more money trying to prove their wrong is right.

Never mind. The truth will be known only to the selected few, I suppose. As far as I am able to tell, radon is part of the qi process and should not, barring extreme circumstances, be treated as sha.

In my next article I will compare the similarity in behavior of radon and qi in fengshui.

Our guest author, Mr Mike Teh, is a senior lecturer in a private university. He did his masters in engineering through research in fluid dynamics. In his spare time, he studies the practice of Feng Shui to see if a scientific basis can be found. This is his second contribution to our journal.- Pau Wan Leow (ed.)