Hydrogen and oxygen isotope ratios in human hair are related to geography.

ABSTRACT: We develop and test a model to predict the geographic region-of-origin of humans based on the stable isotope composition of their scalp hair. This model incorporates exchangeable and nonexchangeable hydrogen and oxygen atoms in amino acids to predict the delta(2)H and delta(18)O values of scalp hair (primarily keratin). We evaluated model predictions with stable isotope analyses of human hair from 65 cities across the United States. The model, which predicts hair isotopic composition as a function of drinking water, bulk diet, and dietary protein isotope ratios, explains >85% of the observed variation and reproduces the observed slopes relating the isotopic composition of hair samples to that of local drinking water. Based on the geographical distributions of the isotope ratios of tap wate

SUBMITTER: Ehleringer JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2268538 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature