Uranium in Humans

Abstract

Abstract Measurements of the environmental and metabolic behaviour of the naturally occurring radionuclides have provided necessary information on the behaviour of stable elements and have been useful analogues in the study of man-made radionuclides. Uranium has been studied primarily because of its role in the nuclear industry and its possible effects as a heavy metal in occupational exposure cases. There is abundant literature dealing with uranium studies in animals, and some literature on human studies with chronically ill patients. Relatively few data are available which document the uranium concentrations in humans under chronic, low level environmental conditions. Some recent bone measurements performed at the US Department of Energy, Environmental Measurements Laboratory are presented. For comparison, a summary of published information on uranium concentrations in blood, soft tissues and bones of humans is also presented. These data are selected to eliminate results from areas of known elevated natural radionuclide levels and occupational or controlled experimental exposure cases. From the measurements of the uranium concentration in bone from 12 countries, it is possible to derive a cumulative frequency distribution for the sampled populations.