How is it that the body survives for weeks or months before finally succumbing to death after a lethal full body dose of radiation poisoning? I’ve heard that the penatrating radiation of gamma rays and neutrons destroy the DNA beyond repair. So how does the body continue to function for so long afterwards before finally losing the battle? How do cells without DNA carry on?
In: Biology
The reason is that the damage is directly to your DNA, and DNA is not used in the regular functioning of your cells.
DNA is read to make more proteins that are needed, which is a very long process that takes hours. So the earliest you would possibly experience an effect would be after several hours, at which point the cell would just have a low amount of protein synthesis, and eventually that builds up and causes death of individual cells.
Eventually those dead cells can’t be replaced, and that’s what causes dysfunction and possibly death of the whole organism.
But if you were to magically teleport all the DNA out of your body, you would continue functioning for hours if not days, or maybe even a week, I’m not wholly sure exactly how long.
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