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Whenever I buy toothpaste for sensitive teeth I always do a doubletake when I see strontium listed as in ingredient. I have to think for half a second is that
by dghughes 10y ago
Whenever I buy toothpaste for sensitive teeth I always do a doubletake when I see strontium listed as in ingredient. I have to think for half a second is that right? Its name alone I guess is what makes me think that but I guess I am confusing it with other nasty radioactive elements.
- Retric 10y agoThe value in toothpaste is it's chemically similar to calcium, but not quite the same. Anyway, it has 4 stable isotopes, and 84,86,87,88. However, strontium 90 is just stable enough to stick around while being short enough to be nasty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_strontium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_strontium > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90
- alephnil 10y agoNatural occurring strontium is harmless and not radioactive. It fine to have it in toothpaste. The reason you often hear about is strontium as something radioactive is because of Strontium-90, which is one of the longer lived products of nuclear fission, with 30 year half-life. Thus radioactive strontium-90 is always present after a nuclear accident or explosion.
- dghughes 10y agoYeah but it takes a second for me to clue in.