system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do radioactive materials (radon, uranium, plutonium, etc) cause diseases like cancer?
gpt
When a radioactive particle decays it emits waves of radiation. These rays are highly reactive and can interact with many things inside the human body. The main problem with this is these particles can interact with the molecules that make up DNA. This will then cause errors within the DNA sequence. If these errors are within key genes that code for DNA repair mechanisms or replications control mechanisms it will cause the cell to reproduce uncontrollably causing a tumour to develop.