From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Sep 14 2003 - 09:20:40 MDT
On Sun, 14 Sep 2003, Technotranscendence wrote:
> Also, people have perhaps become too paranoid about these things. I
> have a close friend who won't take dental X-rays because he fears
> getting cancer. Now I don't know the statistical correlation between
> dental X-rays and cancers, but the funny thing is neither does he!
Dan, X-rays are an ionizing radiation and so are clearly harmful --
but one has to put them in context with respect to solar flares,
radon exposure, cosmic and X-rays from Gamma Ray Bursts and Magnetars,
how much one flys reducing atmospheric shielding, etc. I have yet
to see a good evaluation of the relative risks.
The way I try to deal with X-rays is try to overload on antioxidants
slightly prior to the X-ray. So that means loading up on Vitamin-E
for a few days to a few weeks prior. Vitamin-C might also be helpful
but it depends on ones iron level -- the more iron one has available
the more likely that Vitamin-C may act as a pro-oxidant rather than
an anti-oxidant. Alpha Lipoic Acid and glutathione may also help
but I'm not sure we know enough about them currently. We also don't
know enough about how external anti-oxidants impact the production
of internal anti-oxidants and whether one can "overload" the
oxidant sensing systems for a few days prior to having an X-ray.
(Thus allowing one to have greater defenses for a short period
before the system balances the internal production of anti-oxidant
molecules/enzymes with external supplementation.) It is my personal
opinion that short-term overloading may be feasible.
Vitamin E appears to be relatively non-toxic (up to several thousand
IU per day) -- so you can push the amount you consume for short periods
and probably be reasonably safe (compared with some other Vitamins,
esp. Vitamin A, where excessive consumption may be harmful.)
R.
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