Why in the energy drinks used to add radium?

Modern life is constantly causing you fatigue? Do you feel that you do not have time, and you do not have enough strength to finish all the cases? Perhaps you are one of the millions of consumers who rely on energy to cheer up and bring things to the end.

The invention of the last century

Although energy drinks can be called a symbol of our time, they are not an invention of the new millennium. People rely on them, trying to overcome fatigue, for at least the last century. Today their "energy", as a rule, comes from some type of neurological stimulant that makes you feel more energetic, and sometimes even ordinary sugar.

But there was a time when energy drinks actually contained real radioactive energy. The active ingredient in these drinks was radium - a radioactive element, which releases a huge amount of radiation energy with each atom decay. And although the connection between the consumption of radioactive elements and the appearance of a charge of energy is shaky at best, this did not stop people in the early 1900s who ignored known risks and long-term health consequences.

The unusual taste of radium

One such energy product containing radium was RadiThor. In fact, this energy drink consisted of radium, dissolved in water. It was sold in the 1920s in bottles with a capacity of 30 ml. The cost was about $ 1 (equivalent to $ 15 in 2016). The manufacturer claimed that this drink will not only provide you with energy, but will cure many diseases, including impotence. Evidence of the benefits for the sexual life of people was not enough, but at least one scientific document claimed that a radium dissolved in water could increase the "sexual attraction of water newts". For many people in the era before the appearance of Viagra, this proof was enough. RadiThor had a great success among consumers.

Fan of unusual energy

The most famous consumer of RadiThor was Eben Byers, an industrialist from Pittsburgh and an amateur golfer. Byers first started using RadiThor when he treated a broken arm. Although this product did not contain any drugs, Byers became addicted to it, at least psychologically, if not physiologically. He continued to consume a large amount of RadiThor drink even after his hand healed. It is reported that he drank a bottle or two every day for more than three years and tirelessly recommended a drink to all his friends. Some of them also began to drink RadiThor constantly.

In the end, Byers' dependence on RadiThor killed him. Unfortunately, the use of radium affects the bones, since all the radiation energy is stored in the bone tissue. Over time, radium provided the Byers skeleton with a colossal dose of radiation. He lost most of the jaw, there were holes in the skull and a number of other diseases associated with the bones. In the end, he died a terrible death on March 31, 1932.

Repetition of the lesson on the harmfulness of radioactivity

The shame of this situation was that the danger of using radium was known even before Byers started taking RadiThor. The medical community has been studying the effect of radium on human health since its discovery by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898. The British scientist Walter Lazarus-Barlow already in 1913 published data that, when swallowed, radium goes to the bone. In 1914, Ernst Zublin, a professor of medicine at the University of Maryland, published an overview of 700 medical reports, many of which showed that bone necrosis was a frequent side effect of swallowing radium. Unfortunately, these early red flags went unnoticed, and the sale of RadiThor remained at its height until the 1920s.

A study of the level of radiation in bone tissues

When Byers died, he was buried in a coffin with a lead lining to block the radiation from the bones in his body. Thirty-three years later, in 1965, scientist Robley Evans exhumed Byers's skeleton to measure the amount of radium in his bones. Since the half-life of radium is 1600 years, Byers's bones had practically the same amount of radium as on the day he died.

Evans was an expert in measuring and mathematical modeling of the absorption and excretion of radioactive elements by the human body. On the basis of Byers' own records on the consumption of RadiThor, Evans calculated that the body of the deceased should have contained about 100,000 Becquerels. Becquerel is an international unit for measuring radioactivity. But he found that the remains of the skeleton actually contain a total of 225,000 Becquerels. This suggests that the model of the radiation capture of Evans was inaccurate, or that Byers actually lowered the consumption of RadiThor at least twice. But now it is already impossible to determine which of these options is correct.

After Evans finished his measurement of radium, he returned the bones of Byers to his leaden coffin in Pittsburgh, where they remain today.

Why there were no cases of mass mortality

Although Byers, of course, suffered from radium in RadiThor, the consumption of such energy drinks has never escalated into a serious public health crisis. There were two reasons for this. First, unlike RadiThor, most other "energy" drinks on the market were fakes. They did not contain any radium or any other radioactive element. Secondly, RadiThor and other products that actually contained radium, were very expensive. The fact is that radium was a relatively rare and valuable element, and the process of its extraction and purification was costly. So only rich people, like Byers, could afford to use it every day. Consequently, the ailments caused by RadiThor appeared only in those few personalities who could afford to pay for a drink.

Ultimately, in the interests of public health, the federal government closed Bailey Radium Laboratories, the company that produced RadiThor. As a result, radium-containing energy drinks disappeared from the consumer market by 1932.

Stimulants in modern drinks

Today, the energy drinks market relies on caffeine to "revitalize" its customers and give them the energy they are looking for. Caffeine is a well-known ingredient in coffee, tea, chocolate and cola. It can not be called as exotic as radium, but it is actually a stimulant, so that people who consume it feel a surge of energy and do not risk their health at the same time.