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Lead is a very dense substance and so can absorb most of the radiation which hits it, this means that less radiation is able to get to the part of your body which is not needing an x-ray.

So, in short, lead is used to protect parts of the body from unnecessary exposure to radiation. This is good because radiation like x-rays can cause mutagens which can increase the rate of mutations in genes and DNA (sometimes causing Downs Syndrome etc.)

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