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The biological half-life of a substance is the time it takes for a substance (drug, radioactive nuclide, or other) to lose half of its pharmacologic, physiologic, or radiologic activity, as per the MeSH definition. Biological half-life is an important pharmacokinetic parameter and is usually denoted by the abbreviation t1/2.[1] While a radioactive isotope decays perfectly according to first order kinetics where the rate constant is fixed, the elimination of a substance from a living organism follows more complex kinetics. See the article rate equation. The biological half-life of water in a human is about 7 to 10 days. It can be altered by behavior. Drinking large amounts of alcohol will reduce the biological half-life of water in the body[citation needed]. This has been used to decontaminate humans who are internally contaminated with tritiated water (tritium). Drinking the same amount of water would have a similar effect, but many would find it difficult to drink a large volume of water. The basis of this decontamination method (used at Harwell) is to increase the rate at which the water in the body is replaced with new water.
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