Revision 1
March 19, 1998
by Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc.,
Edited by J. Muckerheide

1.7
Nutrition & Health

"Ionizing Radiation is an Essential Agent

"If ionizing radiation is an essential agent, most populations live in a partial radiation deficiency. Radiation hormesis would then be the alleviation of a partial radiation deficiency. This would make the dose-response curve for ionizing radiation comparable with that of several essential nutrients. Examples include vitamin A, thiamin, vitamin B6, calcium, iron and selenium. Individuals and populations who receive insufficient amounts of these essential nutrients are routinely supplemented with those nutrients. Supplementation with an essential agent present in insufficient amounts would explain the dramatic results following small increments in whole body exposures to chronic, low dose irradiation,

"Evidence of a radiation deficiency comes from microbes, plants and invertebrates (Table 10). In each case the results suggest that a decrease in ambient radiation is devastating for the organism. The adverse effects of subambient levels of ionizing radiation in this variety of lower forms of life suggest vestigial systems function in the unity of life throughout evolution.

"Obviously, a similar experiment should be performed to determine whether mammals require ionizing radiation. Such information is fundamental for us to live in harmony with ionizing radiation.

"The unity of life is apparent throughout evolution: this includes human phylogeny. The implication of the results with lower forms of life is that ionizing radiation is essential for humans. We surmise that the strong effect of low dose irradiation in animals and humans, as illustrated throughout this summary, is remedial for a partial radiation deficiency."