https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2477686/ The good and bad of Hormesis. I believe mostly in the good. THE GOOD
Over 3,000 scientific research papers show that low dose irradiation is stimulatory and/or beneficial in a wide variety of microbes, plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates (Luckey, 1980a, 1991, Muckerheide, 2001). Using the parameters of cancer mortality rates or mean lifespan in humans, no scientifically acceptable study was found which showed that less than 10 cGy was harmful. Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc. (Box 843, Needham, MA 02494) offers $1,000 for one report in English with scientifically acceptable evidence of harm (increased cancer death rate or decreased average lifespan) from low dose irradiation in normal (not immune deficient) humans or laboratory animals. This is opposed by several thousand studies which produced confirmed and definitive evidence of stimulation and/or benefit.
The Bad is actually it is not promoted enough do to basically the poor press radiation gets. THE BAD
The bad is the promulgation of a false concept by many radiobiologists: all radiation is harmful. Brucer noted Health Physics had become a religious cult: “In 1979 the National Committee for Radiation Protection (NCRP) … dropped all pretense at science and assumed there was a risk in every radiation exposure.” (Brucer, 1990). In their attempt to obtain research money, geneticists predicted that genetic monsters (found in fruit flies subjected to large doses of radiation) would occur in people exposed to radiation from atom bombs. When geneticists chanted “all radiation is harmful” and “genetic monsters”, financial support for research on the effects of low dose irradiation vanished. Suddenly, editors were not interested in papers showing stimulatory or beneficial effects from low doses of ionizing radiation. Although no genetic monsters can be attributed to low dose irradiation, including atomic bombs, laws are based upon the false dogma that all radiation is harmful. “This is the greatest hoax of the twentieth century.” (Jaworowski, 1994).
The bad was the retreat to 19th century therapy, surgery, for patients with gangrene when bacteria became resistant to antibiotics about 30 years ago. Surgery is traumatic and the death rate from gangrene in diabetics remains high. “We have found only one really efficient means of prevention and treatment (of gas gangrene), and that is X-ray therapy without amputation, chemotherapy, or serum.” (Kelly and Dowell, 1942). Kelly and Dowell summarized 97 case histories of patients with gas gangrene and other infections: “One cannot fail to observe …. favorable changes in the clinical signs if one treats a few patients with such diseases after they appear to be too seriously ill to be moved from bed for any purpose.” Their conclusion was that neither chemotherapy nor serum was comparable with, nor compatible with, X ray treatment.