期刊名称：International Journal of Environmental Monitoring and Analysis
印刷版ISSN：2328-7659
电子版ISSN：2328-7667
出版年度：2020
卷号：8
期号：6
页码：187-192
DOI：10.11648/j.ijema.20200806.12
语种：English
出版社：Science Publishing Group
摘要：Worldwide, the contagion of chronic diseases like diabetes and cancer among children has made the nutritionists thoughtful. Food contamination with radioactivity, became a severe health threat for children below five since they are under developing immune systems and cannot fight off infections like adults. Radioactivity concentrated in food chain may be transferred to human body and increase the cumulative risk of developing cancer and some other diseases. Therefore the assessment of radioactivity levels in baby food and their associated doses are of crucial importance for health safety. The study is focused on the radiation contamination of baby food due to the nuclear disasters and make public awareness about infant’s nutrition followed by the health safety. The natural radioactivity level due to 238U, 232Th and 40K in baby food (cereals and powder milk) samples, marketed in Bangladesh were estimated and annual effective dose was assessed. Gamma spectrometry was performed by HPGe detector coupled with MCA, and certified reference materials were used for quantification and quality control. The average concentrations of 238U, 232Th and 40K were found to be 5.42±0.42, 5.71±0.50 and 334.4±12 Bq.Kg-1 in milk sample and 2.98±0.38, 3.94±0.29 and 155.7±7.5 Bq.Kg-1 in cereal sample respectively. The committed effective doses due to ingestion of natural radionuclides (238U, 232Th and 40K) from the consumption of milk and cereals for age group <1 year were 1.30 and 0.51 mSv/yr and for age group 1-2 year were 0.31 and 0.15 mSv/yr respectively. The age group < 1yr, who are completely depend on formula milk are under highly threat since their annual effective dose 1.30 mSv/yr exceeds the recommended permissible limit of 1 mSv/yr. The data generated in this study will provide base-line radiometric values of activity concentration and annual effective dose attributed from baby foods in Bangladesh.
