Overview
Cobalt is an essential trace metal as the central metal in vitamin B12, but cobalt-containing dusts and hard-metal materials can produce respiratory toxicity, allergic dermatitis, cardiomyopathy, and carcinogenicity concerns. Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021 is attached as the first chapter-level toxicology source for this node.
Status
This page is a source-map stub created during the re-ingest of Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021. Substantive cobalt-specific expansion awaits a dedicated cobalt ingest.
Frequently asked questions
What is cobalt and why does the body need it?
Cobalt is an essential trace metal, meaning the body requires small amounts of it. Its essential role comes from being the central metal atom in vitamin B12, according to Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021.
What health effects can cobalt cause?
The attached toxicology source notes that cobalt-containing dusts and hard-metal materials can produce respiratory toxicity, allergic dermatitis, cardiomyopathy, and carcinogenicity concerns Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021. The page does not quantify these effects or tie them to specific dietary exposures.
Which forms of cobalt are associated with toxicity?
The page attributes cobalt’s toxic effects specifically to cobalt-containing dusts and hard-metal (hard-metal/tungsten-carbide) materials rather than to cobalt in general Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021. It does not describe toxicity thresholds or food-specific exposure levels.
How much does this page currently tell me about cobalt in food?
Very little. This is a source-map stub created during the re-ingest of Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021, and it states that substantive, cobalt-specific expansion awaits a dedicated cobalt ingest. At present it carries only a general characterization of cobalt and a single attached toxicology source.
Sources
- Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021 — Ufelle AC, Barchowsky A, 2021. Toxic Effects of Metals, Ch 23 in Casarett & Doull’s Essentials of Toxicology, 4th ed.
References
Works cited in this page’s text, in first-appearance order. This is not the full corpus for this page; it is only what the prose above draws on. The complete set of sources is listed under Sources below. Each title links to its source record, which carries the ingest receipt, the extracted values, and the file hash of the document it was built from.
- Toxic Effects of Metals (Chapter 23), in Casarett & Doull’s Essentials of Toxicology, Fourth EditionTextbook
Update history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Change | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| a8052bb | 2026-08-09 | major | 1 source added; contamination-profile values revised; 10 sections added |