Annual Committed Effective dose as a result of daily Consumption of Medicinal Herbs in Iraq

Knowledge Expertise of radioactivity levels in the human diet is very important to estimating potential radiological risks to human health. During this research gamma ray spectroscopy technique was used to measure the awareness and amount of the annual effective dose (E_ave) due to Uranium, Thorium and Potassium and the lifetime risk factor for cancer (ELCR) in forty samples, of the most widely used medicinal herbs in Iraq and evaluation of ingested doses through herbs consumption, the estimated total annual effective dose received of Uranium, Thorium and Potassium due to the population's consumption of medicinal herbs ranges (0.0124-0.9632) with a mean (0.1502), (0.0024-5.7334) with a mean (0.4750), (0.8324-7.9970) with a mean (2.9349) in units (μSv/y) respectively, while the lifetime risk factor for cancer was ranges (0.0291-0.2798) with a mean (0.1026). All results indicate that they are within the permissible limits for medical and food use, and when comparing the results with IAEA publications and international and Arab research, it was found that they are significantly less than the permissible global range and therefore do not pose a threat to human health also can be considered as database of these herbs in the future.