[ RadSafe ] uranium translocation and retention; appropriate therapies

[James Salsman]

Dear Dr. Surveyor:

Thank you for your reply:

>... Assuming an acute exposure to soluble U ... 60-80% of an
> intravenous dose in animal studies is excreted within 24 hours.
> In  humans 56.2% of uranium was excreted in urine within 24 hours.

In humans, 50% of inhaled partially soluble uranyl nitrate translocates
from the lungs between 5 and 30 days, depending on the isotope, and 90%
translocates away after 100 and 140 days.  After five days, the kidney
burden drops from 5% of the initial lung burden to about 0.1% after 200
days.  11% of the initial lung burden of the 232U isotope is retained
in the bone after 30 days, and 11.5% of that isotope is retained after
200 days.  (Gmelin Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry, 8th ed., English
translation (1982), vol. U-A7, page 305, from J. E. Ballou, R. A. Gies,
and N. A. Wagman in Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratory Tech. Rep.
BNWL-2500, Pt. 1 (1978) pp. 379-80.)  The LD50/30 of uranyl nitrate is
2.1 mg/kg in rabbits, 12.6 mg/kg in dogs, 48 mg/kg in rats, and 51
mg/kg in guinea pigs and albino mice (ibid. Gmelin pp. 312-22.)  Fatal
human inhalation exposures were reported in U.S. troops after friendly
fire incidents in late February 1991, with the rapid onset of renal
failure comorbid with various burn injuries.

A. C. Miller, et al.[1] at the U.S. Armed Forces Radiobiology
Research Institute, have described the toxicity of uranium, apart
from its nephrotoxicity, as resulting from oxidative DNA damage,
in turn from catalytic production of hydroxyl radicals.  Is
antioxidant production stimulation therapy appropriate for uranium
poisoning victims, after the period when chelation is pointless?
E.g., Protandim[2], which contains extracts of milk thistle (silybum
marianum) seed[3], ashwagandha (withania somnifera) root[4], bacopa
monnieri aerial part[5], and turmeric (curcuma longa) rhizome[6].
There are other forms of antioxidant production stimulation therapy
such as the ependymin peptides being studied by CereMedix[7].  I am
most interested in your opinion on this question.

[1] 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12121782

[2]
http://www.protandim.com/html/about_the_science/protandim_solution.htm

[3] 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12059045

[4] 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11116534

[5] 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12093601

[6]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11712783

[7] http://www.ceremedix.com/pages/products.html

I have been disappointed with the effectiveness of chelation therapies.
Although there are many researchers trying a number of chelation
antidotes, none of them is apparently very good against uranium
poisoning victims after 15 days or so, because of the reasons above.
I have studied these and related reports on human uranium chelation:
   http://bovik.org/du/sequestering.pdf (warning:  2 megabytes)
   http://bovik.org/du/chelators.pdf (38 kB)
   http://bovik.org/du/343lihopo.pdf (491 kB)
   http://bovik.org/du/synth-adu.pdf (206 kB)
I still need to research sodium alginate:
   http://www.fao.org/docrep/W6355E/w6355e0x.htm

I sent this to the RADSAFE list last December 16th:

> If we were in favor of genetic modification, we might try to
> figure out how to install a detection-chelation system in white
> blood cell RNA.  We could start with a protein structure change
> that only uranium would be likely to catalyze, and then use a
> feature of the resulting structure to activate local antidote
> synthesis, or other preventative measures.  Who knows whether an
> inoculation would be possible, but if we could do that in other
> animals, then there might be a way to do it in humans.... [That
> might] require dozens of generations of animals' tests before it
> would be likely to be worth testing on people....

Even if feasable, that would be a long way off.  However, there
must be dozens of medical research students looking for interesting
topics, somewhere.

Sincerely,
James Salsman