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
Because the thing that kills you isn’t that it instantly kills all of your cells.
It’s that by destroying your DNA, it destroys your cells’ ability to repair themselves and multiply.
So say your kidneys get irradiated, they don’t just instantly die. They keep working for a while. But as more and more cells die or get damaged naturally, those cells cannot be replaced like normal, which means your kidneys start working worse and worse until they totally fail
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