Biology, Nutrition and Medicine:

It is now well recognized that in addition to the principal body building elements such as Ca, Mg, P, Na, K, etc. a number of trace elements, including V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Cu, Zn, Se, Mo, Rb and I are essential for growth and health in humans. Just as important, however, are some toxic elements for the same group of species e.g. As, Br, Ag, Cd, Sb, Ba, Pb though to widel y differing extent. Activation analysis has proved to be a very effective technique for the determination of most of these trace elements. The collaboration between activation analysts and medical researchers has resulted in a much deeper understanding of the function of trace elements in the body. Variation in trace element levels has been observed in hair, blood and tissue samples of nasal-pharynx cancer patients and so also in tissue and blood of breast cancer patients at different histopathological stages. NAA has been used in the determination of trace element levels in human blood and excision biopsy samples of breast cancer to correlate with clinical histopathological stages and further correlated it with dietary intake. Another biologically important area is nutritional studies where NAA is being extensively used because of its multielemental character. Trace element evaluation of some medicinal herbs has been carried out whereby variation in trace element contents of same plant species from different origins may be attributed to ecological and geographical variations. This may be further used for the development of drug formulation.