[ RadSafe ] Don't swim in the Pacific

[Chris Alston]

Mike

Actually, it's not a challenge.  They get it that I am just using OJ
as an example of something in our diets that has especially high
concentrations of potassium, and that it is nearly ubiquitous in
foodstuffs.  Also, it might be useful to bear in mind that the
homeostasis of serum potassium is to keep it within (in an example
from one clinical lab) the range of 3.5 - 5.5 mmol/L.  It is a fairly
dynamic value, I think, depending on what one has recently eaten,
one's state of hydration.

A possibly interesting anecdote is that, when I was at a very large
university medical center, in the early eighties, and we had lots of
people doing bench research with homemade iodinated proteins (as
opposed to using RIA kits), we were certain that, when on thyroid
bioassay, we found someone whose body-background was noticeably higher
than the run-of-the-mill, it developed that he/she was a vegetarian.
We never had the time to look at it systematically, or even
semi-quantitatively, but we felt that it was a very reliable
phenomenon.

Cheers
cja


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brennan, Mike  (DOH) <Mike.Brennan at doh.wa.gov>
Date: Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:12 PM
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Don't go swimming in the Pac. ocean
To: "The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics)
MailingList" <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>


Hi, Chris.

I imagine that it is then something of a challenge to explain to them
that there isn't any point in NOT drinking the orange juice, as the kids
will have the same amount of K40 in them either way.

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Chris Alston
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 10:12 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Don't go swimming in the Pac. ocean

Mike

I second that emotion.  I have been using natural potassium-40 as a
reference point to put these issues in perspective for along time.  I
mean, the elemental spA of K-40 is nominally 850 pCi/gm.  It rarely
fails to impress, e.g., women, when one explains to them that the
orange juice they give to their kids is naturally radioactive enough
that it can be used as a reference source to energy-calibrate
instruments (gamma spec).

Cheers
cja

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 12:10 PM, Brennan, Mike  (DOH)
<Mike.Brennan at doh.wa.gov> wrote:
> It would have been nice if they had compared the activity from Cs-137
to
> the activity from K-40 in the same samples.
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