[ RadSafe ] Re: Radiation deficiency remediation: KCl

[howard long]

KCL, (not ingested but several sacks to lie on at night), could raise background levels about 0.5 rad/year. My wife didn't like the idea, especially since having a mattress between would reduce the amount to insignificance. We already get a lot of potassium in diet, especially in vegetables, which have KCl as the main intracellular salt - as do people. 
 
Howard Long
 
John Jacobus <crispy_bird at yahoo.com> wrote:
As a starting point, the total amount of potassium
varies from 110-140 grams, depending on muscle mass. 
The radioisotope, K-40, is about 0.0118% of natural
potassium. K-40 decays by beta-minus, 89%, and
electron capture 11% with 1.46 MeV gamma rays, and
beta-plus 0.001%. Beta-minus maximunm energy is 1.314
MeV. With a half-life of 1.26 X 10^9 years, the
specific activity is 7.1 microCi/gm. 

As a first pass, the activity of K-40 is 92 to 117
nanoCi of activity. 

--- "Bradshaw, Keith" 
wrote:
> I think we've discussed this on here before. The
> additional dose from
> ingestion of potassium is likely to be very small. 
> It's just the dose as it
> is "passing through". Unless you are deficient in
> potassium to start with,
> none of the additional potassium will be retained in
> the body. Although
> I've not calculated it, I suspect you'd make
> yourself very sick if you
> attempted to ingest enough KCl to raise your
> radiation dose to these
> "hormetic" levels. Perhaps that's why you have
> "given up on KCL"?
> 
> Personal views only
> 
> keith.bradshaw at niras.co.uk
> 
> web: www.niras.co.uk
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> 
> My 3, 40 lb sacks of KCL for water softener ($9
> each) give only a doubling
> of background radiation (0.030mrad/hr) on contact. I
> have given KCL up as an
> added source of radiation, although about as much
> comes to most of us from
> the KCL already in our bodies as usual USA coast
> background, according to
> Luckey's book.
> 
> Howard Long 
> _______________________________________________