Exposure of German hunters and their family members to the radioactive nuclide 137Cs due to their eating habits

The radioactive nuclide Cs-137 that was released during the Chernobyl accident in 1986 is still present in the environment of wide parts of Middle Europe. It causes internal radiation exposure of people who incorporate this radionuclide when eating contaminated food, in particular boar meat and certain kinds of wild mushrooms. This study investigates the exposure of German hunters and their family members, which are supposed to consume these kinds of food more frequently than the general population. For this purpose, the body activity of Cs-137 was measured in 58 hunters and their family members mostly from Southern Germany and it was compared with body activities from 1729 measurements of 251 members of the general population. Significantly higher Cs-137 body activities were found in the hunters and their family members compared to the references after matching both groups for sociodemographic factors and the time of the measurement (factor of 2.4 between the geometric means, p-value << 0.001). Within the hunters and their family members, an adjusted exponential regression showed significant associations of the activity and of mushroom picking (factor 2.6, 95% confidence interval 1.5-4.6) and of the frequency of having boar meat as part of the diet (factor 1.4 per meal per week, 95% confidence interval 1.1-1.8). No significant association was found for the Cs-137 surface contamination at the hunting grounds. Within families, mostly similar results were found in terms of activity concentrations. For the hunter with the highest measured activity (1050 Bq), an annual contribution to the effective dose of 35 mu Sv was calculated, showing that also in hunters and their family members Cs-137 is expected to cause only small contributions to the total effective dose from environmental exposure. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The study investigates the exposure of German hunters and their family members to Cs-137 and finds significantly higher body activities in this group compared to the general population. The higher activities are associated with mushroom picking and the frequency of consuming boar meat in the diet.