Re: Whizzing away tritium

[Dan Marx <dmarx01@baker.edu>]

As a side note, I recall several years ago a training class was given at a 
military installation that prepared night site devices using tritium.  
The instructor told the group to drink lots of beer if there was a 
potential exposure. The group of workers were predominately Mennonites.

dan  

regards  On Wed, 28 Apr 1999, Scott Schwahn wrote:

> > >I can reasonably see the RSO telling the patient that he must drink five extra
> > >liters of water per day for the next month, but a short term treatment with a
> > >single six-pack, or even 2 or 3, is unlikely to be effective.
> >
> > My question would be, how long following intake (usually inhalation, I
> > assume) does it take for tritium to equilibrate in the body? It may be
> > beneficial to drink a lot of fluids promptly after exposure with the goal
> > of reducing the tritium before reaching equilibrium. Otherwise, I think you
> > are quite right - the amount of water that would have to be consumed to
> > affect tritium in equilibrium would be ridiculous.
> 
> Keep in mind as well as the increase in turnover rate due to uptake of any liquid,
> alcohol is also a diuretic, which stimulates urine production.  Caffeine has the same
> effect, so drinking loads of regular iced tea or coffee would work as well.  Stress
> is also considered to be a diuretic, so if the beer reduces your stress from the
> tritium uptake, I would stick with the iced tea.
> 
> The nominal biological half-life of tritium is about 10 days, but can decrease to
> only 3-4 days or less for people who drink alcohol regularly (after work, of
> course).  If this is the case for night-time drinking (where you eventually sleep
> through many removal opportunities), imagine the rate at which it will make a
> difference if you drank iced tea all day and into the evening.  Since virtually your
> entire dose is governed by the removal rate, you can make a huge difference.
> 
> Exercise also helps, as it increases your removal from sweating.  But do it at home,
> so you don't create a contamination area ;-)!
> 
> Bob, to answer your question, all the literature I've read indicates that you can
> treat it as virtually immediate equilibrium.  I would have to review them again to
> see if that is for conservatism or if it approaches reality.
> 
> Stick with the iced tea.
> 
> --
> Scott O. Schwahn, CHP
> Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
> schwahn@jlab.org
> <mailto:schwahn@jlab.org>
> 
> 
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DAN L. MARX
dmarx01@baker.edu
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