Overview
Molybdenum is an essential cofactor for enzymes including sulfite oxidase, xanthine oxidase, aldehyde oxidase, and mitochondrial amidoxime reductase. Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021 attaches molybdenum as an essential-metal-with-toxicity-potential node and notes that excess molybdenum can resemble copper deficiency.
Status
This page is a source-map stub created during the re-ingest of Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021. Substantive molybdenum-specific expansion awaits a dedicated ingest.
Texas animal-feed survey
Texas mineral feed products had molybdenum mean 4.078 mg/kg, SD 6.222 and median 1.3 (N=55; Dai et al. 2016, Table 3). A table footnote incorrectly reports nondetection in several other groups with positive summary rows. Both reports remain visible as a source contradiction. These are feed-material summaries with zero substitution below quantitation. Heavy Metal Contamination of Animal Feed in Texas
Frequently asked questions
What is molybdenum and what does it do in the body?
Molybdenum is an essential trace metal that acts as a cofactor for several enzymes, including sulfite oxidase, xanthine oxidase, aldehyde oxidase, and mitochondrial amidoxime reductase Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021. It is categorized as an essential metal that also carries toxicity potential.
Can too much molybdenum be harmful?
Yes. Although molybdenum is an essential nutrient, it is described as an essential metal with toxicity potential, and excess molybdenum can resemble copper deficiency Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021. The page does not provide specific intake levels or dose thresholds.
How does excess molybdenum affect copper in the body?
According to Ufelle & Barchowsky 2021, excess molybdenum can resemble copper deficiency. The page does not detail the underlying mechanism beyond noting this interaction.
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.
- Toxic Effects of Metals (Chapter 23), in Casarett & Doull’s Essentials of Toxicology, Fourth EditionTextbook
- Heavy Metal Contamination of Animal Feed in TexasPeer-reviewed
- Assessment of the Risk of Heavy Metals Accumulation in Vegetable CropsPeer-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
Vladimir N. Bashkin, 2021. Bashkin and Galiulina review vegetable-associated metal exposure assessment and microbial/agronomic risk-management approaches. Chinese and Russian case-study values are secondary reports; they remain traceable to the cited studies and are not counted as new independent occurrence samples. Supports exposure-method and remediation literature discovery. Bacterial effects can increase as well as decrease uptake depending on organism, metal and plant; the review does not establish a universal inoculant intervention. Secondary model outputs are not contemporary health or certification thresholds.