Re: Repair & DDREF

[loesch@viper.eh.doe.gov (Robert M. Loesch)]

On Mon, 21 Aug 95 15:53:34, Paul Frame wrote in reply:

>                                ... Of course, if you are a fan of
>hormesis, you can argue that the repair mechanisms for some reason
>are normally operating at a suboptimal rate and that radiation
>stimulates repair. This might then be imagined to reduce the total
>amount of unrepaired DNA damage, damage brought about by radiation
>and everything else.
>

I'm not an expert in this area, but I believe that there have been some
animal experiments when a substantial dose, say 4 Sv, was delievered and
the effects compared with another idential group receiving the same
dose except that the dose was divided with a pre-sensitizing dose of about
50 mSv followed within 12-24 hours by the remaining dose.  I seem to
remember that the first group displayed a statistically significant increased 
response to the same overall dose as the second group.

Bob Loesch

Robert M. Loesch
DOELAP Administrator
U.S. Department of Energy
Germantown, MD 20874
(301) 903-4443
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