It turns out to be quite hard to do animal experiments or human epidemiological studies with appropriately small levels of radiation. I suppose one could do comparisons of longevity and cancer rates of tribes living at different altitudes, but there are probably confounding differences in diet, and maybe lower air pressure adds stress to the body? Cell cultures are all well and good, but sometimes it is the whole organism that responds to an irritant.
And so, there are proposals for an Ultra Low-Level Radiation Effects lab. Underground, of course.
One group has been working with human lung and bronchial cells. They cited earlier research.
"For example, Planel et al (1987) incubated paramecia underground in the Pyrenees mountains at the Centre National Recherche Scietifique (CNRS) and showed growth inhibition of cells within incubators shielded at 0.2mGy/year; they were able to recover growth rate to control levels by exposing the underground cells to 60Co (4 mGy/year)."
The human cell group went on to check for "heat shock proteins" as a marker for stress, using human lung and bronchial cells.
shielding cells from natural levels of radiation upregulated the expression of two of the three stress proteins, and follow-on exposure to x-rays further upregulated expression.
Their Figure 2 does show striking differences. I won't say I'm sure what that means, though. There might be other functions for those proteins.
Though the data variability was relatively high, the three indicators of cell growth demonstrated that cells grown underground were inhibited and grew increasingly so with increasing time underground
Don't take this as an excuse to drink Radithor. That's not a small dose. But you might feel better about buying your kids a Gilbert's Atomic Energy Lab. Just make sure they aren't buying thousands of lantern mantles for some project in the shed.
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