Re: Aging, cancer, and why radiation might be a good thing

From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Sat Apr 14 2001 - 00:56:08 MDT


TJ is supported by University of Colorado. The article mentions two different
studies of nuclear workers: one studied 37,000 workers and was done by Thomas
Luckey of the University of Missouri, and the other one studied 150,000 workers
and the article doesn't say who did that one.

The theory has already been proven in worms and other creatures, using other
means of stress like heat. If someone has access to the New Scientist archive
perhaps they can dig up the whole article.

John Marlow wrote:
>
> Something is awry; this flies in the face of all available evidence
> of which I'm aware. Very likely they have something else in common,
> if results are accurate.
>
> Cynical question: Who funded this?
>
> jm
>
> On 14 Apr 2001, at 1:18, Brian Atkins wrote:
>
> > There is an interesting article in the March 17 New Scientist called "Cruel
> > to be Kind" about the research work of Thomas Johnson. His lab site is here:
> >
> > http://ibgwww.colorado.edu/tj-lab/index.html
> >
> > unfortunately I can't find the article online so far. But it talks about
> > how a little bit of radiation and other kinds of stress might actually be
> > a good thing. For instance studies of thousands of nuclear workers that
> > are exposed to something like 10 times the normal background radiation
> > live on average 17% longer than "normal" people, and have HALF the amount
> > of cancer. Also of interest is just the general fact that cancer used to
> > be far less common in the 19th and earlier centuries. Some people claim
> > this is due to people living longer in 20th century and other factors like
> > widespread smoking, but could it also be due to the fact that we are living
> > such stress-free (in terms of physical environment, not mental stress...)
> > lives that our immune systems are slacking off? The EPA is running a study
> > now on whether low-level radiation would be beneficial... by 2003 you may
> > be encouraged to take vitamins containing radionuclides.
> > --
> > Brian Atkins
> > Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
> > http://www.singinst.org/
> >
>
> John Marlow

-- 
Brian Atkins
Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/



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