ENENEWS Fukushima Update: 12-13-2013

[DeSwiss]

29. Got it.

- Thanks for the reminder! The main key to taking iodine to reduce uptake of iodine-131, is to take it before exposure so that one's thyroid is full of the stuff and there's no room in the thyroid for the iodine-131.

Medical applications

Potassium iodide has been used as an expectorant, although this use is increasingly uncommon. In medicine, potassium iodide is usually used to treat acute thyrotoxicosis, usually as a saturated solution of potassium iodide called SSKI. It is also used to block uptake of iodine-131 in the thyroid gland (see isotopes section above), when this isotope is used as part of radiopharmaceuticals (such as iobenguane) that are not targeted to the thyroid or thyroid-type tissues.

Iodine-131 (usually in the chemical form of iodide) is a component of nuclear fallout and a particularly dangerous one owing to the thyroid gland's propensity to concentrate ingested iodine, where it is kept for periods longer than this isotope's radiological half-life of eight days. For this reason, if people are expected to be exposed to a significant amount of environmental radioactive iodine (iodine-131 in fallout), they may be instructed to take non-radioactive potassium iodide tablets. The typical adult dose is one 130 mg tablet per 24 hours, supplying 100 mg (100,000 micrograms) iodine, as iodide ion. (Typical daily dose of iodine to maintain normal health is of order 100 micrograms; see "Dietary Intake" below.) By ingesting this large amount of non-radioactive iodine, radioactive iodine uptake by the thyroid gland is minimized. See the article on potassium iodide for more on this topic. link