Artificial (¹³⁷Cs) and natural (⁴⁰K) radioactivity and total potassium in medicinal fungi from Yunnan in China

ABSTRACT

Evaluated has been radioactive contamination with ¹³⁷Cs in parallel to occurrence of ⁴⁰K and total K in 31 species of medicinal mushrooms from Yunnan, China. We chose species that were not previously studied. The activity concentrations of ¹³⁷Cs in the medicinal fungi in this study were low. The maximum values were 54 ± 4 Bq kg^–1 dry biomass (db) in caps and 48 ± 5 Bq kg^–1 db in stipes of saprotrophic fungus Gerronema xanthophyllum from the family of Tricholomataceae. Mushrooms with relatively higher activity concentrations of ⁴⁰K were among the non-polypore species but certain species from the genus Ganoderma such as G. applanatum, G. capense, G. philippii and G. sinense showed ⁴⁰K in the higher range of 900 ± 240 to 1400 ± 340 Bq kg^–1 db. The concentrations of total K in the fungal materials in this study were in the range from 2.9 ± 6.5 g kg^–1 db in Fomes rufolaccatus to 110 ± 6 g kg^–1 db in G. xanthophyllum. The species studied, which represented both some popular wood-decaying polypore fungi but also terrestrial forms from the herbal medicine of China, can be considered as little contaminated with ¹³⁷Cs and potentially good source of leachable K in extract and decoction or as a powdered form in capsules.

KEYWORDS:

• Caesium-137
• environmental radioactivity
• herbal medicine
• medicinal mushrooms
• potassium
• potassium-40
• radioecology
• radiotoxicity
• Yunnan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [project no. 31860584].