3/16/2024 0 Comments Ritual abuse mercury poisoningFor years, the main interest has been focused in monitoring acute mercury poisoning, to eliminate direct sources of pollution. Severe mercury poisoning, also known as Minamata disease, has visual signs and symptoms that develop quickly. environmental), mercury toxicology studies have been carried out mostly on high-level acute effects 11. When exposure is due to environmental levels, mercury mainly accumulates in kidneys and liver 9, while in acute or occupational exposure high concentration can also be found in the central nervous system 10.Īlthough most of the population is exposed to low-dose chronic mercury levels (i.e. Acute and chronic/environmental exposure have normally different target organs. Chronic exposure is one of the major concerns among other reasons because of the damage that can cause in embryonic development through its impact in central nervous system formation 8. However, acute intoxication with mercury is rare and the main health risk is related with chronic exposure. Mercury acute intoxication can damage permanently the nervous system, cause renal toxicity, myocardial infraction, immune malfunction, and irregular blood pressure, or in the worst of the cases it can lead to death 8. This variability leads to a wide range of target organs and clinical symptomatology, which can also be affected by dose, time, and route of exposure 7. Mercury toxicology is complex, as it has different chemical species that do not necessary share absorption pathways neither behaviour inside the organism 5, 6. This is the reason why the WHO considers mercury as an element of global public health concern 4 and its toxicology and environmental cycling have been widely researched and monitored. There is no biological known function for it and it is harmful even at very low doses. Mercury is considered one of the most potentially toxic metal elements 3. Given its chemical properties, once it is available in ecosystems it is prone to bioaccumulation and biomagnification in food chains 1, 2. Mercury is a global pollutant that is released to the environment from both anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic sources. Finally, our study stresses the need to characterise the burial soil environment in order to fully understand the role of the interactions between soil and skeleton in mercury cycling in burial contexts. silt + clay) should be analysed, as it is the most reactive and the one with the higher potential to provide information on metal cycling and incipient soil processes. We also conclude that, in coarse textured soils, as the ones studied in this investigation, the finer fraction (i.e. Within burial variability seems to depend on the proximity of the soil to the thoracic area, where the main mercury target organs were located. The amount of soft tissues and bone mass also resulted in differences between burials, indicating that the skeletons were a primary/secondary source of mercury to the soil (i.e. The decomposition of the bodies not only was the primary source of mercury to the soil but also responsible for the pedogenetic transformation of the sediments and the formation of soil components with the ability to retain mercury. The model explains 72% of mercury variance and suggests that mercury accumulation in the burial soils is the result of complex interactions. PLRS modelling was used to elucidate the factors controlling mercury distribution. In our study we applied a soil multi-sampling approach in two burials dated to the 5th to 6th centuries AD. Archaeological skeletons have been found to be useful sources of information regarding mercury loads in the past. Given the long history of mercury pollution, researching mercury trends in the past can help to understand its behaviour in the present. Mercury environmental cycle and toxicology have been widely researched.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |