Re: Number of chromosome repairs

[Andy Hull <hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov>]

At 10:08 AM 1/27/98 -0600, you wrote:
>Dear Radsafers:
>
>A staff member has asked the following question:
>
>What is the average number of chromosome repairs per day?
>
>I guess around 100K, but would appreciate something a bit
>more scientifically concrete.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Bob
>
>=======================================================
>            _/ _/                _/ _/              _/_/_/_/
Robert M. Loesch
>          _/     _/           _/     _/           _/
US Department of Energy
>        _/         _/     _/           _/       _/
EH-52, GTN, 270CC
>      _/          _/   _/               _/    _/_/_/_/            19901
Germantown Road	
>    _/         _/       _/           _/     _/
Germantown, MD  20874-1290
>  _/        _/           _/      _/       _/                      Tel: 301
903-4443;  Fax: -7773
>_/ _/ _/                _/ _/          _/_/_/_/
loesch@spok.eh.doe.gov
>=======================================================
>              "The definition of a public health disaster is a catastrophe
so large
>                   that an epidemiologic study can detect it."    David
Ozonoff
>
>
Bob, 
/While the following does not precisely answer your question, it may be
relevant.  In an article "The Hazards of U.S. Policy on Low-Level Radiation"
, 21st  Century Science and Technology, J. Muckerheide and T. Rockwell
state  in part in answer to "What Does Radiation Do?", the following:
"The first consideration is that we all live in  a sea of natural
radioactivity--natural sources   of radioactivity impact our bodies with an
average  of  15,000 photons  or particles every second--more than a billion
 such events every day of our lives.  But our bodies face even greater
challenges: About 5,000 purine bases are lost daily form the DNA  in each
human cell  because the body's normal heat breaks their linkages. Thousands
of DNA nucleotides in each cell are also damaged by free radicals created
in the normal process of metabolism, which  results from routine eating and
breathing. Our bodies continuously repair this damage with few mutations--un
repaired or misrepaired DNA."

They  go on to discuss this and then on to  other arguments not relevant to
your question.  If you are interested, I'll fax a copy of the article to you