Salt (NaCl) has importance not only in regard to the seasoning and preservation of food but also in greater mass utilisation settings, including the salting of roads in wintery conditions. The assessment of health benefits and risk from the intake of salt is of paramount importance, well appreciated in regard to hypernatremia and hypertension but much less considered within the content of natural radioactivity and heavy metals contamination. Present study examines the elemental and radionuclide concentrations of commonly used artificial salts in Malaysia, including Himalayan salt, table salt and Dead Sea cooking salt along with the natural Jordan Dead Sea salt, employing the techniques of Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and High Purity Germanium (HPGe) gamma-ray spectrometry. Measured data have been compared with international advisory limits, as provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). Individual health risk assessment has been couched in terms of committed effective dose per year from the radionuclides ²³⁸U, ²³²Th, ⁴⁰K, resulting from the consumption of the various salt inputs. This has led to an upper estimate for terrestrial radionuclide exposure radiation dose to individuals of some 17.1 μSvy⁻¹, with an average of 4.3 μSvy⁻¹, the latter some 70 times lower compared to the UNSCEAR reference annual advisory dose limit of 290 μSv (corresponding to the typical allowable limit for public exposures of 1 mSvy⁻¹), representing negligible risk. With respect to heavy metals, the estimated daily intake (EDI) due to the consumption of salts shows the investigated salt samples to all be within the tolerable daily intake (TDI) as guided by the WHO, thereby posing inappreciable toxicity to human health.

盐 (NaCl) 不仅在食物的调味和保存方面具有重要意义，而且在更大规模的利用环境中也很重要，包括在冬季条件下为道路加盐。评估摄入盐分的健康益处和风险至关重要，在高钠血症和高血压方面广受好评，但在天然放射性和重金属污染的含量中却很少考虑。本研究采用电感耦合等离子体质谱 (ICP-MS) 技术检查马来西亚常用人造盐的元素和放射性核素浓度，包括喜马拉雅盐、食盐和死海食用盐以及天然约旦死海盐和高纯锗 (HPGe) 伽马射线光谱法。已将测量数据与世界卫生组织 (WHO) 和联合国原子辐射影响科学委员会 (UNSCEAR) 提供的国际咨询限值进行了比较。已根据放射性核素每年的待积有效剂量对个人健康风险进行评估²³⁸ U, ²³² Th, ⁴⁰ K，来自各种盐输入的消耗。这导致对个人的地面放射性核素暴露辐射剂量的上限估计约为 17.1 μSvy ^-1，平均为 4.3 μSvy ^-1，后者比UNSCEAR参考年度建议剂量限值 290 μSv 低约 70 倍（对应于公众暴露的典型允许限值 1 mSvy ^-1 )，代表可忽略的风险。在重金属方面，因食用盐分而产生的估计每日摄入量（EDI）显示，所调查的盐样均在世卫组织指导下的每日可耐受摄入量（TDI）范围内，对人体健康造成不可估量的毒性。