234
Removal of Uranium from the Body by Various Excretory Paths
The excretion rates of natural uranium via three different pathways, i.e. urine, faeces
and hair, are tabulated in Table 3. The excretion rate by means of hair shows a range
of values from 0.20 to 2.35 μg d
−1
with mean and median as 0.75 and 0.50 μg d
−1
,
respectively. However, in faeces and urine, the average amount of uranium excreted
from the body per day is 1.48 and 0.41 μg, respectively. Clearly, much more uranium is eliminated from the human body through the large intestine than any other
route, but this is mainly unabsorbed uranium. The variation of uranium excretion
Fig. 8 Time-dependent variation of uranium load in the kidney and liver
Table 4 Comparison of transfer coefficients to various organs/tissues with previous studies
Reference study
Kidney Liver Skeleton GI tract Soft tissues Urinary bladder Blood
Utah
a
0.19
0.14 3.69
Colorado
a
0.08
0.13 4.86
Pennsylvania
a
0.09
0.15 5.34
Rajasthan (India)
b 0.07
0.15 4.61
0.01
1.45
0.002
Present study
0.01
0.04 1.21
0.01
0.38
0.0002
0.005
a
Singh et al. (1986)
b
Jakhu et al. (2016)
R. Mehra and S. Kaur