Quoted: Is there any way to make your body more immune to the effects of radiation? If you started in small dosage exposure and slowly increased, would your body build up a tolerance, or would you just slowly kill yourself? We are already immune to carbon 15 radiation, so why couldn't we become immune to uranium? |
The cells in your body are already fairly tolerant of low levels of ionizing radiation. There are chemical and molecular repair mechanisms in the cell that automatically repair your DNA when any damage, either from ionizing radiation (background radiation) or noxious chemicals in the environment, occur.
These repair mechanisms can be overwhelmed, however, and fail; resulting in cellular death, or harmful mutation (cancer).
The federal agencies that regulate radiation operate on a "linear no-threshold" principle that NO level of ionizing radiation, no matter how miniscule, is "safe". Radiation workers use the "ALARA" (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principle to minimize occupational exposure.
There is some scientific literature, however, that suggests very low levels of exposure are actually beneficial, by stimulating these repair mechanisms; known as
hormesis.
For example, there is a subset of people exposed to radiation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki who had a
lower incidence of cancer compared to the non-exposed general population.
The bottom line though, is that you cannot become "immune" or build up a "tolerance" to radiation. Over a certain low level of exposure, the effects are detrimental, and cumulative over a lifetime.
Doc H.