RE: Bananas (K-40)

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 15:19 30.07.1998 -0500, you wrote:

>Many of my relatives where told by their MDs to eat more bananas in order to
>increase their K levels rather than take some obnoxious tasting liquid
>(K-lyte ???) 

This is nonsense. The level of potassium is "hoemeostatic" controlled
(whatever this is). This means, if you ingest more potassium, then you
excrete "at once" more, so that the absolut amount is always the same.
Since potassium is found mostly in muscles, the only way to increase total
potassium (not the concentration) in ones body is to gain muscle weight.
Increasing the food intake by eating a lot of bananas will sure increase
your body weight but not the muscle weight! Potassium will not be stored in
fat tissue, the amount of which will surely be increased by the lot of
carbohydrates present in bananas. 

Radiocesium behaves much like potassium and follows it in the body. We
found in Austria, that athlets had significantly more Cs-137 in their body
than the average population, due to their increased muscle weight.

I like bananas and will consume them in the future in moderate quantities
in spite of the radioactive K-40 and the carbohydrates!

Franz


Franz Schoenhofer
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
Fax.: same number
mobile phone: +43-664-338 0 333
e-mail: schoenho@via.at

Office:
Federal Institute for Food Control and Research
Department of Radiochemistry
Kinderspitalg. 15
A-1095 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-40 491 520
Fax.: +43-1-40 491 540
e-mail: schoenhofer@baluf.via.at
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