Abstract
The dried sclerotium of the fungus Wolfiporia cocos is edible and has medicinal value. This study aimed to understand the accumulation of radioactivity arising from the alpha (210)Po, and beta-emitting (210)Pb, in the sclerotium's shell and core and assess a potential effective dose for consumers. Sclerotia were collected in the wild and from cultivars in China's Anhui and Yunnan provinces. The mean values of (210)Po activity concentration levels were 0.36 Bq kg(-1) dry weight in the core and 12.0 Bq kg(-1) dw in the shell; (210)Pb activities were 0.43 and 9.84 Bq kg(-1) dw, respectively. The potential effective radiation doses from core layers (as a major raw material of the sclerotium) ranged from 0.13 to 3.43 µSv kg(-1) dw from (210)Po decay and from 0.11 to 1.52 µSv kg(-1) dw from (210)Pb decay. Corresponding values for shell ranged from 0.80 to 42.4 for (210)Po and from 0.53 to 13.6 µSv kg(-1) dw for (210)Pb. In general, the intake of W. cocos sclerotia varies between consumers, but this would not significantly change the effective radiation doses from (210)Po and (210)Pb isotopes. The consumption thus appears to be safe from a radiological protection point of view.