Heavy Metals and Human Health: Mechanistic Insight into Toxicity and Counter Defense System of Antioxidants
By A. Jan, M. Azam, Kehkashan Siddiqui, Arif Ali, I. Choi, Q. Haq.. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2015
1,077 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Heavy metals, which have widespread environmental distribution and originate from natural and anthropogenic sources, are common environmental pollutants. In recent decades, their contamination has increased dramatically because of continuous discharge in sewage and untreated industrial effluents. Because they are non-degradable, they persist in the environment; accordingly, they have received a great deal of attention owing to their potential health and environmental risks. Although the toxic effects of metals depend on the forms and routes of exposure, interruptions of intracellular homeostasis include damage to lipids, proteins, enzymes and DNA via the production of free radicals. Following exposure to heavy metals, their metabolism and subsequent excretion from the body depends on the presence of antioxidants (glutathione, α-tocopherol, ascorbate, etc.) associated with the quenching of free radicals by suspending the activity of enzymes (catalase, peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase). Therefore, this review was written to provide a deep understanding of the mechanisms involved in eliciting their toxicity in order to highlight the necessity for development of strategies to decrease exposure to these metals, as well as to identify substances that contribute significantly to overcome their hazardous effects within the body of living organisms.
Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Nutrition and Dietetics, Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2a42b612a805a52298949755f0004a1ace9d81fc
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Citations in the corpus
- Heavy metal remediation and resistance mechanism of Aeromonas, Bacillus, and Pseudomonas: A review (2020, background): “Exposure to heavy metals severely affects the nervous system, reproductive systems, gastrointestinal tract, and mucous tissues (Jan et al., 2015) (Table 3).”
- A Detailed Review Study on Potential Effects of Microplastics and Additives of Concern on Human Health (2020, background): “Cadmium has been suggested to take part in the promotion of cellular apoptosis and DNA methylation, in providing oxidative stress, in causing damage to DNA, in increasing bone fractures in postmenopausal women, and in lipid peroxidation [77,92,93].”