Quantification of Adaptive Protection Following Low-dose Irradiation.

The question whether low doses and low dose-rates of ionizing radiation pose a health risk to people is of public, scientific and regulatory concern. It is a subject of intense debate and causes much fear. The controversy is to what extent low-dose effects, if any, cause or protect against damage such as cancer. Even if immediate molecular damage in exposed biological systems rises linearly with the number of energy deposition events (i.e., with absorbed dose), the response of the whole biological system to that damage is not linear. To understand how initial molecular damage affects a complex living system is the current challenge.