Assessment of radiological hazards due to ingestion of natural radionuclides in cooking oil samples

This study measured the activity concentration of natural radionuclides in cooking oil samples by using a high purity germanium (HPGe) detector. The detected average activity concentration of K-40, Ra-226, and Th-232 is 2.68 +/- 1.29 Bq kg(-1), 0.35 +/- 0.15 Bq kg(-1), and 0.30 +/- 0.12 Bq kg(-1), respectively. Moreover, the measured concentrations were used to assess several radiological hazard indices due to ingestion [i.e., annual effective dose (AED), total AED, and excess life cancer risk (ELCR)] by consumers of these cooking oils. Even though the results indicate that their annual values are far below the worldwide permitted levels, it was observed that the radionuclides pose the highest annual effective dose 17.47 mu Sv y(-1) to children (10-15 years old) to (12-17 years old) and that the testes organ receives the highest annual effective organ dose rate (D-organ) 1.1 mu Sv y(-1) due to ingestion of the cooking oil samples.