Search results for "HEAVY METAL"
showing 10 items of 266 documents
Association between toenail scandium levels and risk of acute myocardial infarction in European men: the EURAMIC and Heavy Metals Study
2002
The association between scandium status and risk of acute myocardial infarction (MI) was examined in a multicentre case control study in 10 centres from Europe and Israel. Scandium in toenails was assessed in 684 cases and 724 controls less than 70 years of age. Mean concentrations of toenail scandium were 6.74 micro/kg in cases and 7.75 microg/kg in controls. Scandium among controls, adjusted for age and centre was positively associated with concentrations of lycopene and oleic acid in adipose tissue (P = 0.002 for both nutrients). Pearson correlations adjusted for age and centre were significant (P0.05) between scandium and lycopene (r = 0.08), zinc (r = 0.08), mercury (r = 0.18) and olei…
Endothelial function and serum concentration of toxic metals in frequent consumers of fish.
2014
BACKGROUND:Endothelial dysfunction is involved in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Consumption of fish is associated with reduced cardiovascular risk, but there is paucity of data concerning its effect on endothelial function. Furthermore, investigation of the effects of fish consumption on health must take into account the ingestion of contaminants, including transition metals and some metalloids, which may have unfavorable effects on health, including those on the cardiovascular system. We investigated the association between fish consumption, endothelial function (flow mediated dilation of the brachial artery), and serum concentration of some toxic metals in apparently healthy people…
Is metal accumulation in Pomphorhynchus laevis dependent on parasite sex or infrapopulation size?
2010
SUMMARYConcentrations of the elements As, Cd, Co, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sn, V, Zn were analysed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) in the acanthocephalan Pomphorhynchus laevis and its fish host Barbus barbus. A total of 27 barbels were collected from the Danube River in autumn 2006 close to the town Kozloduy (685 river kilometer) on the Bulgarian river bank. Fish were divided into 3 groups. According to their P. laevis infrapopulation size hosts were considered as heavily infected (>100 worms per fish) and lightly infected (<20 worms per fish). The third group was used to compare heavy metal concentrations between male and female P. laevis. The 5 elements As, C…
Heavy metal exposure in patients suffering from electromagnetic hypersensitivity
2009
Abstract Background Risks from electromagnetic devices are of considerable concern. Electrohypersensitive (EHS) persons attribute a variety of rather unspecific symptoms to the exposure to electromagnetic fields. The pathophysiology of EHS is unknown and therapy remains a challenge. Objectives Heavy metal load has been discussed as a potential factor in the symptomatology of EHS patients. The main objective of the study was to test the hypothesis of a link between EHS and heavy metal exposure. Methods We measured lead, mercury and cadmium concentrations in the blood of 132 patients ( n = 42 males and n = 90 females) and 101 controls ( n = 34 males and n = 67 females). Results Our result…
Toenail cerium levels and risk of a first acute myocardial infarction: the EURAMIC and heavy metals study.
2006
The association between cerium status and risk of first acute myocardial infarction (AMI) was examined in a case-control study in 10 centres from Europe and Israel. Cerium in toenails was assessed by neutron activation analysis in 684 cases and 724 controls aged 70 years or younger. Mean concentrations of cerium were 186 and 173 microg/kg in cases and controls, respectively. Cerium was positively associated with low socio-economic status, smoking, mercury, zinc and scandium (p0.001). Cases had significantly higher levels of cerium than controls after adjustment for age and centre (case-control ratio 1.074; 95% CI 1.002-1.151) and increased in further adjustment for other cardiovascular risk…
Renal and neurologic effects of cadmium, lead, mercury, and arsenic in children: evidence of early effects and multiple interactions at environmental…
2006
We read with great interest the article by de Burbure et al. (2006) on health effects in children who live near nonferrous smelters in France, the Czech Republic, and Poland. We were especially interested in the inverse relationship found between levels of urinary mercury and serum prolactin. We found a similar result in an Italian multicenter crosssectional survey with adult subjects (Alessio et al. 2002) using a different statistical approach based on regression analysis with mixed linear models. We found that serum prolactin decreased as a function of both urinary mercury and occupational exposure to inorganic mercury (Lucchini et al. 2003). In another study (Carta et al. 2003), our grou…
Sunscreen Products as Emerging Pollutants to Coastal Waters
2013
A growing awareness of the risks associated with skin exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation over the past decades has led to increased use of sunscreen cosmetic products leading the introduction of new chemical compounds in the marine environment. Although coastal tourism and recreation are the largest and most rapidly growing activities in the world, the evaluation of sunscreen as source of chemicals to the coastal marine system has not been addressed. Concentrations of chemical UV filters included in the formulation of sunscreens, such as benzophehone 3 (BZ-3), 4-methylbenzylidene camphor (4-MBC), TiO2 and ZnO, are detected in nearshore waters with variable concentrations along the day a…
Alkali-Activated Adsorbents from Slags: Column Adsorption and Regeneration Study for Nickel(II) Removal
2021
Alkali-activated adsorbents were synthesized by mixing three different slags from the steel industry: blast furnace slag (BFS), ladle slag (LS), and Lintz–Donawitz converter slag (LD). These powdered slag-based geopolymers (GP) were used to remove nickel(II) from aqueous solutions in fixed-bed column studies. The experiments were conducted in pH 6 using a phosphate buffer with initial nickel(II) concentration of 50 mg/L. Samples were taken at time intervals of between 5 and 90 min. Three adsorption–desorption cycles were implemented with a flow rate of 5 mL/min. The geopolymers were characterized by Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Field Emissi…
Heavy Metals in Mollusc Shells: A Quick Method for their Detection
2015
It is known for a long time that calcified tissues secreted by aquatic or terrestrial invertebrates – such as mollusc shells – have the ability to concentrate large amounts of pollutants, in particular heavy metals. In the present paper, we have found an extremely rapid and easy procedure to qualitatively detect the putative presence of heavy metals in shells, without having to use sophisticated techniques such as Wavelength Dispersive Spectroscopy, atomic adsorption spectroscopy or ICP-MS. Our method rests on the capacity of the silver enhancement chemicals that are traditionally used in immunogold localization experiments to increase the size of heavy metal nanoparticles, whatever the che…
Stable two -dimensional spatial solitons in heavy metal oxide glasses
2007
In this Communication, a stable self-confined propagation with ps near-infrared (NIR) pulses and over several Rayleigh lengths is demonstrated for the first time . Multiphoton absorption is shown to saturate the self-focusing response in a novel glass of the ternary system Nb2O5-O2-PbO (NPG) exhibiting a high refractive index (2-2.1) in the NIR and an energy gap of 3.52 eV. NPG belongs to the family of heavy metal oxides, widely studied for its fast and high nonlinearity in the infrared.