[Radon and ionizing radiation in the human body].

Spa health care became a medical discipline just as the development of other sciences created sufficient grounds for it. The basic and oldest method of spa treatment is balneotherapy. Among the medicinal waters, those with radon arouse the most controversy, these being the source of ionizing radiation. Radon is the one of the most important natural sources of radiation on earth. The exact mechanism of radon's effect on the human body is not completely understood. The hormesis theory is the best explanation of the advantageous biological effect of ionizing radiation in low doses. Radon significantly influences free oxygen radical transformations, nucleic acid repair, immunological processes, etc. It is a rare gas and does not react chemically with any compound in the body. It is known that radon is effective in treating chronic pain syndromes, endocrine disorders, and diseases of the circulatory and respiratory systems.