Iron (Fe)

Overview

Iron is essential for hemoglobin, myoglobin, heme enzymes, and mitochondrial enzymes. Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021 attaches iron to the wiki as both an essential nutrient and a toxicity concern through acute poisoning and chronic iron overload.

Status

This page is a source-map stub created during the re-ingest of Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021. Substantive iron-specific expansion awaits a dedicated iron ingest.

Additional source evidence

Physical, chemical and biological characteristics of clays from Durban (South Africa) for applications in cosmetics reports elemental XRF results for red and white cosmetic clays bought in Durban. Measurements refer to dried and ground market material, with no dermal absorption or species-specific determination.

Chromium research: qualified source context

One Nilore, Islamabad soil characterization reported iron of 170 µg/g by bulk elemental analysis (Table 2). The source does not state a wet/dry basis or replicated uncertainty. This is a local soil result; it does not measure food occurrence or crop transfer. LABORATORY SCALE ELECTROKINETIC REMEDIATION OF HEXAVALENT CHROMIUM FROM CONTAMINATED SOIL

Frequently asked questions

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. See Sources for this page’s source inventory. 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.

1. Toxic Effects of Metals (Chapter 23), in Casarett & Doull’s Essentials of Toxicology, Fourth EditionUfelle AC and Barchowsky A · Casarett & Doull’s Essentials of Toxicology, Fourth Edition. McGraw Hill Education · 2021 · www.mhprofessional.comTextbook
2. Physical, chemical and biological characteristics of clays from Durban (South Africa) for applications in cosmeticsS’busiso M Nkosi and Nokukhanya Thembane · Analytical Science Advances · 2024 · doi.org/10.1002/ansa.202300062Peer-reviewed
3. LABORATORY SCALE ELECTROKINETIC REMEDIATION OF HEXAVALENT CHROMIUM FROM CONTAMINATED SOILM. Khalid, N. Ahmed, and R. M. Qureshi · The Nucleus 45(1–2):55–61 · 2008 · doi.org/10.71330/nucleus.45.01-2.998Peer-reviewed
4. Wastewater Irrigation and Accumulation of Heavy Metals in Vegetable Crops (Broccoli and Cauliflower)Bayan Rashid Rahim · Tikrit Journal for Agricultural Sciences 23(2):162–170 · 2023 · doi.org/10.25130/tjas.23.2.13Peer-reviewed
5. Assessment of the Level of Heavy Metals in Irrigation Water, Farm Soil, and Vegetables Grown in Gobbiya Dam, Bogoro Local Government Area Bauchi State, NigeriaJohn Joseph, Toma Buba, Jalo Enoch, and Ayuba Kaluri · Journal of Energy Technology and Environment 7(4):79–92 · 2025 · doi.org/10.37933/jete/7.4.2025.2568Peer-reviewed
6. Removal of Heavy Metals from Industrial Sludge Using Soil Washing TechniqueJ. Sumalatha, B. P. Naveen, and R. K. Malik · Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution 16(3):83–89 · 2019 · doi.org/10.3233/ajw190036Peer-reviewed
7. Speciation and distribution of chromium (III) in rice root tip and mature zone: The significant impact of root exudation and iron plaque on chromium bioavailabilityPeiman Zandi, Xing Xia, Jianjun Yang, Jin Liu, Laurent Remusat, Cornelia Rumpel, et al. · Journal of Hazardous Materials 448:130992 · 2023 · doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2023.130992Peer-reviewed
8. Analysis of a Wild Leafy Vegetable (Premna latifolia Roxb.) Samples for Essential Trace Elements using ICP - MS TechniqueG. Narayana Murthy and Balarama Swamy Yadav Padala · International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Research 12(2):1–4 · 2024 · doi.org/10.70729/se24205180530Peer-reviewed
9. Levels of heavy metals concentrations in chocolates from Bwari market Abuja FCT, NigeriaEmmanuel Joy Enogbe and Agbaghare Daniel Enajeme · International Journal of Adulteration9:e2ijad3057 · 2025 · doi.org/10.54905/disssi.v9i10.e2ijad3057Peer-reviewed
10. Application of principal component analysis in the pollution assessment with heavy metals of vegetable food chain in the old mining areasIosif Gergen and Monica Harmanescu · Chemistry Central Journal6:156 · 2012 · doi.org/10.1186/1752-153x-6-156Peer-reviewed

Update history

No substantive edit history is available in this build. The full commit record is available in git.

Additional geographic and remediation evidence

Bayan Rashid Rahim, 2023. Rahim measured lead, cadmium, iron and copper in dried edible broccoli and cauliflower heads grown under three irrigation regimes in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. The tables preserve crop-specific differences: wastewater-irrigated broccoli had the largest listed values for the four metals, whereas cauliflower cadmium was greatest under alternating irrigation. The paired treatment summaries contribute source-native vegetable occurrence and irrigation-pathway evidence. The dried basis is not interchangeable with fresh vegetables. The experiment is site- and season-specific and does not characterize all river water, all Iraqi produce or long-term dietary exposure.

John Joseph, 2025. Joseph and colleagues measured seven metals in kenaf, chili pepper, tomato and spinach plant parts, with associated soil and irrigation water from Gobbiya Dam in Nigeria. The paper separates edible leaves or fruits from roots and stems. Its concentration tables are preserved independently of several inconsistent safety comparisons and a soil-index calculation that uses water standards. The organ-resolved dry-weight values support local occurrence and irrigation-pathway analysis. Roots, stems and non-edible leaves are retained as pathway context rather than assigned to edible-product distributions. Broad leafy-vegetable and herb/spice ingredient routes retain kenaf and chili identity in the structured record without substituting a named cultivar.

J. Sumalatha, 2019. Column washing of Bangalore-area industrial sludge removed substantially more metals with hydrochloric acid plus EDTA than with distilled water. This is a remediation experiment relevant to sludge contamination pathways, with no measurements in food or a demonstrated safe land-application endpoint. Supports laboratory washing and contaminant-transport comparisons. Metal-rich leachate still requires management; the study does not establish agricultural reuse or field-scale safety.

Peiman Zandi, 2023. Rice seedlings exposed to trivalent chromium retained chromium in roots and surface iron plaques. Synchrotron speciation distinguished ferrihydrite-bound from organic-associated Cr(III), with different proportions in root tips and mature zones; the study concerns an upstream uptake mechanism rather than grain contamination. Supports chromium uptake and iron-plaque pathway evidence. Hotspot spectral fractions are not bulk rice-grain species fractions and cannot substitute for a Cr(VI) food result. Release of plaque-bound Cr during dissolution qualifies any assumption of permanent sequestration.

G. Narayana Murthy, 2024. Premna latifolia leaves collected in three Andhra Pradesh villages had different reported elemental concentrations. Village-specific values are preserved as local leafy-vegetable evidence; the paper supplies no replicate counts or uncertainty estimates. Supports geographic variation in six elements in a specific wild edible leaf. It does not establish nutritional adequacy, safety, or a regional market distribution. The source’s characterization of aluminium as an essential nutrient is not adopted.

Emmanuel Joy Enogbe, 2025. Two anonymous chocolate products from Bwari market contained measurable nickel, iron, copper, chromium and lead. Their reported sample concentrations are preserved independently of inconsistent dispersion, intake means and safety comparisons in the paper. Provides a small local occurrence observation with anonymous products. It cannot establish market prevalence, source attribution, or a no-risk conclusion. Total Cr is not Cr(VI).

Iosif Gergen, 2012. Gergen and Harmanescu analyze metal contamination patterns across two historic Romanian mining areas and a reference area. Their PCA study reproduces vegetable concentrations and male hazard quotients from the earlier Harmanescu 2011 study; these remain linked secondary observations rather than additional independent samples. Supports legacy mining and tissue/region differences. Parsley root and leaf remain distinct, as do carrot root and leaf. The fresh-matter food table is retained with cohort linkage so that a reanalysis cannot inflate the evidence pool. Source THQ rankings are model results, not clinical outcomes.