Heavy metals are naturally occurring elements that have a high atomic weight and a density at least five times greater than that of water. Their multiple industrial, domestic, agricultural, medical, and technological applications have led to their wide distribution in the environment, raising concerns over their potential effects on human health and the environment. Their toxicity depends on several factors including the dose, route of exposure, and chemical species, as well as the age, gender, genetics, and nutritional status of exposed individuals. Because of their high degree of toxicity, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, and mercury rank among the priority metals that are of public health significance. These metallic elements are considered systemic toxicants that are known to induce multiple organ damage, even at lower levels of exposure. They are also classified as human carcinogens (known or probable) according to the US Environmental Protection Agency and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. This review provides an analysis of their environmental occurrence, production and use, potential for human exposure, and molecular mechanisms of toxicity, genotoxicity, and carcinogenicity.

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Heavy metal toxicity and the environment.

Preface.- Contributors.- List of Abbreviations.- Section 1: Basic Principles: Introduction.-Sources of Heavy Metals and Metalloids in Soils.- Chemistry of Heavy Metals and Metalloids in Soils.- Methods for the Determination of Heavy Metals and Metalloids in Soils.- Effects of Heavy Metals and Metalloids on Soil Organisms.- Soil-Plant Relationships of Heavy Metals and Metalloids.- Heavy Metals and Metalloids as Micronutrients for Plants and Animals.-Critical Loads of Heavy Metals for Soils.- Section 2: Key Heavy Metals And Metalloids: Arsenic.- Cadmium.- Chromium and Nickel.- Cobalt and Manganese.- Copper.-Lead.- Mercury.- Selenium.- Zinc.- Section 3: Other Heavy Metals And Metalloids Of Potential Environmental Significance: Antimony.- Barium.- Gold.- Molybdenum.- Silver.- Thallium.- Tin.- Tungsten.- Uranium.- Vanadium.- Glossary of Specialized Terms.- Index.

Heavy metals in soils : trace metals and metalloids in soils and their bioavailability

Highly efficient removal of metal ion pollutants, such as toxic and nuclear waste-related metal ions, remains a serious task from the biological and environmental standpoint because of their harmful effects on human health and the environment. Recently, highly porous metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), with excellent chemical stability and abundant functional groups, have represented a new addition to the area of capturing various types of hazardous metal ion pollutants. This review focuses on recent progress in reported MOFs and MOF-based composites as superior adsorbents for the efficient removal of toxic and nuclear waste-related metal ions. Aspects related to the interaction mechanisms between metal ions and MOF-based materials are systematically summarized, including macroscopic batch experiments, microscopic spectroscopy analysis, and theoretical calculations. The adsorption properties of various MOF-based materials are assessed and compared with those of other widely used adsorbents. Finally, we propose our personal insights into future research opportunities and challenges in the hope of stimulating more researchers to engage in this new field of MOF-based materials for environmental pollution management.

Metal–organic framework-based materials: superior adsorbents for the capture of toxic and radioactive metal ions

Over three billion people are currently micronutrient (i.e. micronutrient elements and vitamins) malnourished, resulting in egregious societal costs including learning disabilities among children, increased morbidity and mortality rates, lower worker productivity, and high healthcare costs, all factors diminishing human potential, felicity, and national economic development. Nutritional deficiencies (e.g. iron, zinc, vitamin A) account for almost two-thirds of the childhood death worldwide. Most of those afflicted are dependent on staple crops for their sustenance. Importantly, these crops can be enriched (i.e. ‘biofortified’) with micronutrients using plant breeding and/ or transgenic strategies, because micronutrient enrichment traits exist within their genomes that can to used for substantially increasing micronutrient levels in these foods without negatively impacting crop productivity. Furthermore, ‘proof of concept’ studies have been published using transgenic approaches to biofortify staple crops (e.g. high b-carotene ‘golden rice’ grain, high ferritin-Fe rice grain, etc). In addition, micronutrient element enrichment of seeds can increase crop yields when sowed to micronutrient-poor soils, assuring their adoption by farmers. Bioavailability issues must be addressed when employing plant breeding and/or transgenic approaches to reduce micronutrient malnutrition. Enhancing substances (e.g. ascorbic acid, S-containing amino acids, etc) that promote micronutrient bioavailability or decreasing antinutrient substances (e.g. phytate, polyphenolics, etc) that inhibit micronutrient bioavailability, are both options that could be pursued, but the latter approach should be used with caution. The world’s agricultural community should adopt plant breeding and other genetic technologies to improve human health, and the world’s nutrition and health communities should support these efforts. Sustainable solutions to this enormous global problem of ‘hidden hunger’ will not come without employing agricultural approaches.

/pdf/breeding-for-micronutrients-in-staple-food-crops-from-a-2sp3ix90vn.pdf

Breeding for micronutrients in staple food crops from a human nutrition perspective

‘Water is life,’ so central to human life, yet over one billion people across the world have no access to safe drinking water. Of late, there has been increasing global attention focused on resolving water quality problems especially in developing countries, as the lack of access to clean water denies the most essential of all rights, the right to life. The latest estimates suggest that around 200 million people, from among 25 nations the world over, are under the dreadful fate of fluorosis. India and China, the two most populous countries of the world, are the worst affected. India is plagued with numerous water quality problems due to prolific contaminants mainly of geogenic origin and fluoride stands first among them. The weathering of primary rocks and leaching of fluoride-containing minerals in soils yield fluoride rich groundwater in India which is generally associated with low calcium content and high bicarbonate ions. The unfettered ground water tapping exacerbates the failure of drinking water so...

Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Review on the Status and Stress Effects

The importance of trace elements as essential dietary constituents is not sufficiently appreciated by the medical profession, although in recent years a significant increase of new finding on their essential character in nutrition occurred as well as of data on changes in the composition of the diet which can cause their deficiency and in some instances a toxic excess. The diagnosis of deficiency or excess of these substances in the organism is very complicated. because their blood level frequently does not provide sufficient information on their reserves in the organism and new laboratory methods suited for this purpose must be developed and tested. The interpretation of the assembled results is very pretentious and it will be therefore necessary to expand teaching of nutrition, where the problem of trace elements no doubt belongs, into undergraduate and postgraduate medical curricula to prevent health damage due to inadequate intake of trace elements as well as uncontrolled intake of freely available preparations sold as supplements.

[Trace elements, human nutrition and health]

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