Heavy metals and living systems: An overview

Overview

This source page is a mechanical bulk-ingest record for a PDF in the methylmercury infant-formula research pull. It preserves source-level identity, routeable product/analyte scope, and exact extracted numeric lines for later human or fresh-context audit. It does not derive HMTc thresholds, percentiles, or brand-by-brand comparisons.

Key numbers

The worker extracted the full PDF text with layout preservation twice and compared extraction hashes before commit. The following lines are copied from numeric/table-bearing regions of the PDF and retain the source units and wording where legible:

Received: 11-05-2010 metals such as cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc can cause deleterious health
Revised: 13-08-2010 effects in humans. Molecular understanding of plant metal accumulation has numerous
Accepted: 23-02-2011 biotechnological implications also, the long term effects of which might not be yet known.
E-mail: reenasingh1.2009@
(Mo), strontium (Sr), and uranium (U).(3)
their atomic mass or density.(1) Heavy metals are a member of
These include the transition metals, some metalloids, Ayurvedic medicines originated in India more than 2000
as one of the common transition metals, such as copper, lead, (HMPs).(4) Approximately 80% of India’s population use ayurveda
from sources such as leaded petrol, industrial effluents, and working in 860 ayurvedic hospitals and 22100 clinics.(5) As early
leaching of metal ions from the soil into lakes and rivers by as the 19th century, there were plants identified, which were
acid rain.(2) Three principal systems of medicine are practiced capable of accumulating uncommonly high Zn levels and hyper
in India: Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani-Tibb. These systems accumulating up to 1% Ni in shoots. Following the identification
biochemistry of metal hyper accumulation in plants.(6) In the
cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg), arsenic (As), chromium (Cr), of safety or efficacy.(7) Since 1978 more than 80 cases of lead
reported worldwide.(8) Metal contamination of garden soils may
zinc are required by humans.(10) All metals are toxic at higher
246 Indian Journal of Pharmacology | June 2011 | Vol 43 | Issue 3
bodies of animals can cause serious illness. Certain elements attributed to increases in soil solution pH (by 0.9 units) after
tungsten, and even cadmium.(1-,11) The Types of heavy metals plants have been shown to either acidify rhizosphere soils and
are enumerated in Table 1. metals or increase soil pH after plant growth. Increased pH
1. They accumulate and thereby disrupt function in vital organs with regard to increased metal concentrations in solution. In
and glands such as the heart, brain, kidneys, bone, liver, the acidic soils (pH 6.5), the effect of pH increases was stronger
1. They displace the vital nutritional minerals from their dissolved metal concentrations in these soils. In contrast, the
foods, beverages, skin exposure, and the inhaled air.(1) metal concentrations and species greatly influenced metal
ionic homeostasis. To minimize the detrimental effects of metal concentrations of the soil.(13)
heavy metal chelator known in plants is phytochelatins (PCs), one to as high as 100,000 mg/kg.(7) Heavy metals are the main
during their exposure to heavy metals.(12) mines and smelting industries.(14) Irrespective of the origin
Arsenic Pesticides, fungicides, metal Bronchitis, dermatitis, poisoning 0.02
Cadmium Welding, electroplating, pesticide Renal dysfunction, Lung disease, Lung cancer, Bone defects 0.06
Lead Paint, pesticide, smoking, automobile Mental retardation in children, developmental delay, fatal infant 0.1
Manganese Welding, fuel addition, Inhalation or contact causes damage to 0.26
Mercury Pesticides, batteries, paper Tremors, gingivitis, minor psychological changes, acrodynia 0.01
Zinc Refineries, brass manufacture, Zinc fumes have corrosive effect on skin, 15
Chromium Mines, mineral sources Damage to the nervous system, fatigue, irritability 0.05
Copper Mining, pesticide production, chemical Anemia, liver and kidney damage, stomach and intestinal irritation 0.1
Indian Journal of Pharmacology | June 2011 | Vol 43 | Issue 3 247
hazards to human, animal, and ecosystem health.(7) Therefore, metal accumulation in the soluble fraction of leaves in plants.
processes for removal of heavy metals are shown in Table 2.
solutions using various lo-cost adsorbents (Fe2O3, Fe3O4, FeS, Table 3:
pellets, and coal) was investigated. Th solution pH on metal Impurities-heavy metals: IR Prespective, 2007(1)
adsorption using Fe2O3 and Fe3O4 was significantly effective,
studied (1.5–9.0).(15) Mechanisms proposed to be involved in

Methods (brief)

Gudmar Gymnema sylvestre 20
of food is one of the most important aspects of food quality system at a regional scale, 96 pairs of rice and soil samples
assurance. Heavy metals are no-biodegradable and persistent were collected from Wenling in Zhejiang province, China,
of the metal which may not have properties and biological 17. Sharma RK, Agrawal M, Marshall FM. Heavy metals in vegetables collected
of heavy metal polluted soils. J Appl Ecol 2002;13:757-62. 34. Klaassen CD. Heavy metals and heavy metal antagonists. Goodman and

Implications

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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
3171d06	2026-08-02	major	1 section added
bc84bfc	2026-08-02	major	6 sections added; narrative text revised