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

From: John Marlow (johnmarlow@gmx.net)
Date: Sat Apr 14 2001 - 10:39:04 MDT


Yeah but did someone else provide the funding to the Us for these
particular studies? Seems remotely plausible, assuming b.g. radiation
used to be higher; could be some sort of evolutionary adaptation.
sounds all wrong, though.

jm

On 14 Apr 2001, at 2:56, Brian Atkins wrote:

> 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/
>

John Marlow



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