Measurement of natural radionuclides in Malaysian bottled mineral water and consequent health risk estimation

The radionuclides of ²²⁶Ra, ²³²Th and ⁴⁰K were measured in ten mineral water samples, of which from the radioactivity obtained, the ingestion doses for infants, children and adults were calculated and the cancer risk for the adult was estimated. Results showed that the calculated ingestion doses for the three age categories are much lower than the average worldwide ingestion exposure of 0.29 mSv/y and the estimated cancer risk is much lower than the cancer risk of 8.40 × 10⁻³ (estimated from the total natural radiation dose of 2.40 mSv/y). The present study concludes that the bottled mineral water produced in Malaysia is safe for daily human consumption