Kernfisika en kwasjiorkor

Abstract

Health problems can often be traced hack to one or the other form of deficiency. In order to study the role of trace elements in the human body it is necessary to develop techniques through which tiny samples taken from the body can be analysed. A suitable method, viz. proton induced X-ray emission (PIXE) is described. This method was used to study a number of trace elements in kwashiorkor patients. It stems that a multi-variant analysis o f blond samples, with the concentrations of different trace elements as variables, can, under favourable circumstances, after one hour yield sufficient information to enable one to diagnose kwashiorkor in patients.