I Just caught a blurb on the evening news about an anti-radiation pill stored at the health department that is supposed to prevent the thyroid from absorbing radiation.
I want to say Potasium Iodide… not sure.
What exactly is it?
How does it work? I know Iodine effects the thyroid dealing with Gout. But, the absorbtion of radiation?
Is this stuff easy to find and purchase?
help an Osip out please.
Osip
Read up. Enjoy.
Yep. Potassium Iodide.
The idea is that the thyroid gland, and only the thyroid gland, is designed to take up iodine. So, if there’s radioactive iodine around, you can prevent the thyroid from taking up the radioactive stuff by flooding it with nonradioactive iodine. That’s the purpose of the potassium iodide tablets. They provide a huge source of nonradioactive iodine to flood the gland. Any radioactive iodine is then ignored by the thyroid and peed out in the urine.
High doses of (non-radioactive) potassium iodide will saturate the thyroid. This prevents it from absorbing (as much) radioactive iodine released in a nuclear accident.
WTF? Maybe I’m missing the reason why one would want to take a bunch of potassiun iodine. Is there a threat of radioactive iodine? Iodine as an ion iodide is a fairly reactive nucleophile. Why would one want to take a bunch of this; how many of us are going to be exposed to a nuclear accident and how is iodine present in a nuclear reactor? I guess iodine might be a fission product, but is it? Fission physics ain’t my bag.
Yes, radioactive iodine is a typical fission product. It was the major contaminant at Chernobyl for example.
Thanks KarkGuass. Yeah, if radoiactive iodine is a major contaminant, then the ‘solution to pollution is dilution’ in your body. Still, I’m a little nervous of letting a nucleophile like iodide rampage in excess in my body if I didn’t need to; but if exposure to radioactive I is the case…
My only experience with 125 I is in using it for radioimmunoassays. The fact that (under appropriate conditions) it covalently bonds with proteins might be scary in a nuclear accident.
I’ll admit being too lazy to search at the moment right now, but what’s the equation for I production in a reactor?
The most comprehensive collection of information can be found at the Potassium Iodide Anti-Radiation Pill FAQ located at http://www.ki4u.com
It also evaluates all the known formulations and includes all the sources for buying these products.
-Shane Connor (FAQ author)
I can’t tell you what the function of Iodide in the body is, but it is not going to be a nucleophile in those conditions. You aren’t refluxing it in acetone. (oddly enough something I was doing earlier) My guess is iodide will not run into to many good leaving groups before it gets processed. It probably gets oxidized somewhere along the line.
Indeed. Ingested iodide gets transported to, and then oxidized to iodine within, the thyroid gland. This second step is called organification. There are a number of sydromes where iodide is unable to be oxidized to iodine within the thyroid gland. All of these syndromes are associated with impairment in thyroid hormone synthesis (hypothyroidism) but not to any other ill effect of which I’m aware.