Deuterium in the form of heavy water is now cheap, and most of the places in the structure where you want to put deuterium are places amenable to using simple inorganic deuterium compounds as the D source. for example LiAlD4 or D2 gas or whatever.
Deuterium is not partiularly toxic, we know this because of the now infamous water cooler incident , a disgruntled worker spiked the water cooler at a research institution with D2O, and for quite some time people drank it, there were no reported adverse effects, though the heavy water also contained trace of tritiated water which is highly dangerous.
Deuterium only shows up as a problem once a large percentage of the bodies' water is heavy then it slows up metabolism and causes toxicity, indeed it has been speculated that using heavy water or better heavy proteins might be a way to enhance longevity.
I have also heard of D2O ice being used to make ice cubes that sink in alcoholic drinks like gin and tonic, though it may be apocryphal. the theory is good, alcoholic mixtures are less dense than water so the cubes don't have to contain 100% heavy water to sink and there are thousands of gallons of heavy water around in labs and research insitutes and it is pretty easy to 'liberate' a few hundred ml.
it is highly unlikely that the average cook will be making any heavy drugs anytime soon, but it might appear in the custom made drugs that olympic class athletes use.
Deuterium is not partiularly toxic, we know this because of the now infamous water cooler incident , a disgruntled worker spiked the water cooler at a research institution with D2O, and for quite some time people drank it, there were no reported adverse effects, though the heavy water also contained trace of tritiated water which is highly dangerous.
Deuterium only shows up as a problem once a large percentage of the bodies' water is heavy then it slows up metabolism and causes toxicity, indeed it has been speculated that using heavy water or better heavy proteins might be a way to enhance longevity.
I have also heard of D2O ice being used to make ice cubes that sink in alcoholic drinks like gin and tonic, though it may be apocryphal. the theory is good, alcoholic mixtures are less dense than water so the cubes don't have to contain 100% heavy water to sink and there are thousands of gallons of heavy water around in labs and research insitutes and it is pretty easy to 'liberate' a few hundred ml.
it is highly unlikely that the average cook will be making any heavy drugs anytime soon, but it might appear in the custom made drugs that olympic class athletes use.
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