A Compartmental Model of Uranium in Human Hair for Protracted Ingestion of Natural Uranium in Drinking Water
May 2009
in “
Health physics
”
TLDR The model helps predict uranium levels in human hair from drinking contaminated water, offering an alternative to urine tests.
The study developed a compartmental model to predict uranium levels in human hair due to chronic ingestion of natural uranium in drinking water. By adding a hair compartment to the existing uranium biokinetic model from the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), the researchers aimed to use hair as a bioassay indicator for uranium exposure. The model considered two excretion pathways from plasma and intermediate turnover soft tissue to hair, with a hair growth rate of 0.1 g/day. The best fit for gastrointestinal absorption was 0.6%, based on data from Finnish well users. The ingestion dose coefficient for 238U was calculated as 1.3 × 10−8 Sv Bq−1, lower than the ICRP's value of 4.5 × 10−8 Sv Bq−1. This model improved the representation of uranium excretion through urine and suggested that hair analysis could assess internal uranium burden, applicable for both chronic and acute exposures.
