Son of ALARA!

[Steve Costigan <costigan@lanl.gov>]

Jim Muckerheide wrote:

"Consider that radiation causes "local" hits (single cell as
you describe, but more often multi-cell) and the signal transduction
stimulates responses that generally improve anti-oxidant and related
protective capabilities; enzymes, proteins, gene expression, etc.; and
apoptosis, etc. that improve general molecular, cellular, and tissue
responses, ....."

and:

"Consider that there are Millions of times more ssb's and dsb's
from normal oxidative metabolism (plus heat, stress, etc.) than from
the normal range of background radiation"

Can someone out there provide references of scientific studies that 
demonstrate that ionizing radiation induces the biological responses 
mentioned above that could mitigate against radiation damage? Also, I was 
not aware that the rate of double stranded breaks was that high under 
normal conditions, is there a reference to support this? Thanks.


***********************************************************************
Steve Costigan, CHP
ESH-1 Health Physics Operations
Los Alamos National Laboratory
MS G749	
Los Alamos, NM  87545		phone: 505-665-9435
fax:   505-665-6678	e-mail: costigan@lanl.gov
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