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A banana contains a natural radioactive isotope of potassium, however this one is not as dangerous since it gets excreted from the body and so the radiation does not accumulate in a body.

But what about other isotopes? I am particularly interested in isotopes with a long halflife, like iodine 129.

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  • Iodine 131 has a half life of only 8 days. – Count Iblis Mar 11 '16 at 17:27
  • You are referring to the pure stable isotope, not any organic compounds that may contain any, like FDG? – jiggunjer Mar 12 '16 at 16:23
  • @CountIblis I corrected to iodine 129 which has a half-time of 15.7 million years. – Dávid Natingga Mar 14 '16 at 1:27
  • @jiggunjer I also include organic compounds that contain such isotopes. The question could be reformulated: how safe is the food which is grown on the soil that contains different kinds of radioactive isotopes and animals that are fed on such products? I guess here the isotopes become part of the organic compounds. – Dávid Natingga Mar 14 '16 at 1:31
  • Out of curiosity, why are you especially interested in those? An isotope with a halflife of 15 million years probably isn't even going to dacay in your body even if it's stays there until you die. – YviDe Mar 14 '16 at 13:38

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