Can uranium cause any type of cancer, including leukemia?
Excessive exposure to radiation or excessive amounts of radioactive elements in the body can cause cancer, including leukemia. In order for uranium outside the body to cause such injury, the levels of uranium in the environment have to be very high as to be easily detected by instrumentation or lab analysis. Again, in order for uranium inside the body to cause cancer, the levels of uranium have to be so large that they are easily detected by laboratory analysis and almost certainly will cause severe kidney damage before any sign of cancer is detected. The more radioactive an element is, the more likely it is to cause cancer. Your chance of getting cancer from uranium is greater if you are exposed to enriched uranium. Enrichment is the process by which the amount of uranium isotopes U-234 and U-235 are increased in naturally occurring uranium (U-238). No cancer of any type has been linked with human exposure to natural (non-enriched) uranium. Studies have reported lung cancer and other
