Dietary intake of Po-210 and Pb-210 in the environment of Goa of south-west coast of India

This paper deals with the distribution and activity intake of Po-210 and Pb -210 in food, diet, and potable water samples of the Goa region and the est imated committed effective dose due to ingestion of these radionuclides. Th e activity concentrations of Po-210 and Pb-210 were determined in about 30 food and diet samples from different places of Goa in order to know the dis tribution and intake of these radionuclides. The activity concentration of Po-210 in fish and prawn samples were significantly higher than concentrati ons found in vegetable and rice samples. Higher concentrations of Po-210 an d Ph-210 were observed in leafy vegetables than in non-leafy vegetables. Am ong the diet samples the activity concentrations of Po-210 and Ph-210 in no n-vegetarian meal samples were relatively higher than in vegetarian meal an d breakfast samples. The committed effective dose due to annual intake of P o-210 was found to be 94.6 mu Sv, 49.1 mu Sv, 10.5 mu Sv, and 2.2 mu Sv and that of Pb-210 found to be 81.6 mu Sv, 59.9 mu Sv, 14.6 mu Sv, and 2.0 mu Sv for the ingestion of non-vegetarian meal, vegetarian meal, breakfast, an d potable water, respectively.