Strontium - 38Sr: biological information
Strontium has no biological role.
Levels in humans
The abundances of the elements in humans.
- Human abundance by weight: 4600 ppb by weight
- Human abundance by atoms: 330 atoms relative to C = 1000000
How much strontium is in your body? Find out here.
You can use this form to calculate how much strontium your body contains. Enter your weight in either kilograms or pounds and click the "Calculate" button. You must enter a number, not text! Elements for which there are no data will always give a value of zero for the weight, no matter what you put in the weight box.
Hazards and Risks
Hazards and risks associated with strontium:
Chemically, strontium resembles calcium and the human body does a poor job of distinguishing the two. It is therefore absorbed by the body and stored in the skeleton in places where calcium should be. This also happens with radioactive 90Sr which produced by above-ground nuclear explosions in the 1950s. Strontium-90 regrettably is widely spread in the environment.
References
- J.E. Huheey, E.A. Keiter, and R.L. Keiter in Inorganic Chemistry : Principles of Structure and Reactivity, 4th edition, HarperCollins, New York, USA, 1993.
- S. Budavari (Ed.) in The Merck Index, 11th ed., Merck, USA, 1989.
- N.N. Greenwood and A. Earnshaw in Chemistry of the Elements, 2nd edition, Butterworth, UK, 1997.