Thought Experiment

[jamesq]

Suppose all of the atoms in your body at one instant in time were tagged in some way. Call them "blue". Let's further say that all the other atoms around you were "red". As you go about your metabolic business, how long does it take for the red atoms to replace the blue ones? I imagine this differs depending on the tissue. Your teeth will likely remain pure blue for a long time. Your bones would similarly take a long time to turn red. But what about your organ tissue? Your blood? Your hair? Probably you'll never be made up of 100% red atoms, but how purplish would you be after a day or a month or a year?

Comments

[ishansonofbrand.livejournal.com]

As you said it depends on your tissue. Brain tissue is forever, as is your eyes and teeth, but bones are ten years. Organ tissue probably takes from several days, like the colon, to several months or years depending. The heart is 20 years, the lungs only several weeks, and your liver is 5 months. (Source quick google and taken from a british news site. Take that as you will.)

If you think about it, the places where you're replacing organs and tissue quickly are the places that are more prone to cancer in most places. Quicker replace equals more of a chance of things going sideways irrecoverably.