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Sustainable Human Life, Key Video: Heavy Metals & Radiation in…

- - - - Naturally Occuring in 3 forms:
        
        Elemental: pure mercury, silvery white liquid at 25 degrees C
        Seen in: Broken florescent bulbs, thermometers, batteries, Contaminated soil, water-> contaminated food sources, Folk Remedies, Used as an alloy and in semiconductors
        
        Organic: methylmercury, ethylmercury
        Found in: Seafood (especially larger, longer living animals), Used in pesticides, Naturally formed
        
        Inorganic: mercuric chloride, mercuric oxide
        Found in: Folk Medicine (Ayurvedic medicine), skin lightening creams (A)
      - Low Dose Exposure: Neurocognitive deficit (A)
        
        Chronic Exposure: Paresthesia leading to ataxia, Generalized weakness, Ptosis, visual impairment, Hearing impairment and Aphasia, Tremor Mercurialis and muscle spasm, Cachexia, Incontinence, Stupor and coma, Organ Damage: Neurodevelopment, Nephrotoxic, Cardiac
      - Prevention:
        
        Avoid vaccuming broken fluorescent bulbs, Limit Albacore tuna consumption and avoid swordfish, shark, king Mackrel, whale blubber and Tilefish, Avoid skin lightening cream (A)
      - Epidemiology:
        
        Mostly absorbed through ingestion
        
        May be transported through placenta
        
        Not absorbed though intact skin
        
        Elemental and inorganic arsenic are more toxic than its organic form (A)
        
        Mercury is toxic to all known living species. (B)
        
        mercury has an endocrine effect because it interacts negatively with dopamine, an essential hormone. (B)
      - mercury is a neurotoxin and the main vector to human exposure is from eating fish (E)
        
        mercury is converted down in the sediments or the mud into methylmercury. Methylmercury is the toxic form and is the form that is most easily taken up by biological organisms and is also the form that is retained in the tissues for the longest period of time (E)
        
        methylmercury is taken up by plants that grow in the water column (E)
        
        zooplankton are eaten by small fish and small fish are eaten by large fish, and so on and so forth. And at each level of that food chain the mercury is increasing in concentration. By the time you get to a top level predator the mercury level can be a million times higher than the level in the surrounding water (E)
        
        we can reduce what mercury gets into our food chains by reducing the amount that we emit. (E)
    - - Causes: burning of fossil fuels, exhaust gases of vehicles, mining, agriculture, and incineration of solid and liquid wastes.
        “metal trace elements” (MTEs) is often used rather that of “heavy metals,” since the MTEs include not only toxic heavy metals but also other less toxic, heavy elements (metalloids). Most MTEs are toxic beyond a certain concentration threshold. Even low concentrations of cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, and zinc (lower than about 0.01 mg L−1) are very harmful to humans. (B)
        
        Chronic Exposure:
        
        MTEs have adverse effects on bacterial populations, which are not without consequences on the functioning of the ecosystem
        
        MTEs also induce disturbances in the seed germination and plant metabolism, growth, and resistance mechanisms (B)
        
        Heavy Metal Removal:
        
        powders or films of COPs in the field of the removal of heavy metals in water has attracted increasing interest. (B)
        
        PANI combined with sawdust could be utilized to remove Cd(II) from waste- water. (B)
    - - contaminants like arsenic and lead must be bioavailable in order to pose a risk to human health. Regulatory agencies like EPA can take this into consideration to refine risk estimates and devise clean up strategies for impacted sites that are not overly burdensome while still effectively protecting human health (C)
      - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): designate a location as a Superfund site and determine a clean-up strategy
        
        • factsheet also provides important information on how impacted communities can reduce their exposures to arsenic or lead in contaminated soil and dust.
        • The bioavailability factsheet has been well received by EPA, and has been used by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in communicating with teachers. It will also be useful for remediation managers as they communicate clean-up strategies to impacted communities. (C)
        . (C)
      - Bioavailability is going to refer to the amount of a contaminant or any food item (C)
      - Healthy Soils, Healthy Communities, a 4-year research and community engagement project funded by NIEHS and led by partners in the Cornell University Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Cornell Waste Management Institute, Cornell University Cooperative Extension-New York City, Green Thumb, and the New York State Department of Health (D).
      - eating vegetables grown in soil high in lead can potentially carry that lead into your body, but the risk depends on the type of vegetable
        
        adding clean soil and compost
        
        Washing all your fruits and vegetables very thoroughly before you eat them
        
        good practice to use raised beds (D)
  - - - The Gray (1 Gy is the deposit of a joule of radiation energy in a kg of matter or tissue) (A)
      - The Sievert (Sv= 1 joule/kilogram- represents the equivalent biological effect of the deposit of a joule of radiation energy in a kilogram of human tissue) (A)
      - Disaster Exposure Symptoms:
        
        Initially: Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, fever
        
        Later Symptoms: Dizziness, disorientation, hair loss, bloody emesis and stool, decreased healing. Low BP(A)
      - Treatment:
        
        GCSF, External decontamination, Potassium Iodine, Prussian Blue, Diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA, Supportive Care
  - - - Effects can be multigenerational because of epigenetic changes. Regulations in US for food and packaging are antiquated making researching difficult. (I)
      - Synthetic chemicals that are common in daily life contribute to decreased health is more commonly accepted: Flame retardants, pesticides, bisphonals, flates (I)
      - Economic cost for failing to document threats on environmental health. Increased efforts to reduce plastics and related consumption and use (I)
      - Occupational hazards are increased by lack of worker knowledge. (I)
    - - KC5: Induces epigenetic modifications in hormone- producing or hormone-responsive cells (H)
      - KC6: Alters hormone synthesis-- perchlorate can block the uptake of iodine into thyroid cells, thereby inhibiting thyroid hormone synthesis and phthalates can reduce testosterone synthesis in the fetal rat testis, resulting in testosterone insufficiency. By contrast, the herbicide atrazine apparently increases estrogen synthesis in peripubertal male mice, as evidenced by a decrease in serum levels of testosterone coupled to an increase in circulating levels of estrogen (H)
        
        • Atrazine (weed killing chemical)(G)
        
        • Minorities distortional affects minority issues (G)
        
        • Elevated prostate and breast cancer (G)
        
        • Showed to Turn Testosterone via aromatase into Estrogen first in studies on frogs then studied in humans (G)
        
        • Same company (Novartis) also sells a drug to reduce aromatase in the body (G)
      - KC4: Alters signal transduction in hormone-responsive cells-- Substantial evidence suggests that xeno-estrogens, especially BPA, increase SRC1 expression, as shown in the rat hypothalamus and in human breast cancer cell lines (H)
      - KC7: Alters hormone transport across cell membranes (H)
      - KC3: Alters hormone receptor expression-- receptor abundance can determine both the concentration of hormones that produces an effect as well as the magnitude of the effect itself in some situations (H)
      - KC8: Alters hormone distribution or circulating levels of hormones-- EDCs can alter hormone bioavailability by interfering with the distribution of hormones in hormone-responsive tissues or with the circulation of hormones (H)
      - KC2: Antagonizes hormone receptors- As androgens are key regulators of male sexual differentiation during fetal development, disruption of androgen action through AR antagonism in this period can permanently demasculinize male fetuses and lead to malformations of the genital tract (H)
      - KC9: Alters hormone metabolism or clearance--could alter hormone concentrations and ultimately their activity. For example, a large number of chemicals activate glucuronidases, which increase thyroid hormone clearance from the blood (H)
      - KC1: Interacts with or activates hormone receptors. (H)
      - KC10: Alters the fate of hormone-producing or hormone- responsive cells (H)
      - For more than three decades, NIEHS has been a pioneer in conducting research on the health effects of endocrine disruptors to understand how they work and define their role in health and disease.
        NTP is evaluating endocrine disrupters including pesticides, perfluorinated chemicals, compounds that may replace BPA in the marketplace, and components of flame-retardants for how they may affect body tissues such as breast, uterus, fat cells, male reproductive tract, and liver. In addition, they conduct laboratory studies that help them prioritize endocrine disrupting chemicals for further toxicity testing. (F)
        
        Immunity. Children exposed to high levels of PFAS had a diminished immune response to vaccines. (F)
        
        Metabolism. Long-term exposure to arsenic can disrupt metabolism, increasing the risk of diabetes and other metabolic disorders. (F)
        
        • Attention. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common childhood disorders, which can continue through adolescence and into adulthood. ADHD symptoms include difficulty staying focused, paying attention, and controlling behavior. Researchers reported in JAMA that ordinary exposure to certain phthalates, as found in urine samples, was associated with ADHD-related behaviors in adolescence. The drug DES may be linked to an increased chance of developing ADHD in the grandchildren of women who used it during pregnancy. (fF)
        
        • Puberty. Chemicals in lavender oil and tea tree oil are potential endocrine disruptors. Researchers found that persistent exposure to lavender oil products is associated with premature breast development in girls, and abnormal breast development in boys. (F)
        
        Reproduction. DES can cause epigenetic changes, altering the way genes are turned on and off, in reproductive organs of mice. The findings provide a possible explanation for how endocrine disruptors affect fertility and reproduction. (F)
- - - - Emerging infectious diseases:
        
        Outbreaks of previously unknown diseases (COVID-19)
        
        Known diseases that are rapidly increasing in incidence or geographic range in the last 2 decades (Chikungunya, Zika)
        
        Persistence of infectious diseases that cannot be controlled. (Dengue) (J)
        
        Yellow Fever
        
        “Yellow Fever has a macabre way of toying with its victims before killing. For three days there was fever and chills followed by a marked improvement. By the fourth day the fever returned… slowly the patient’s skin became yellow… kidneys failed and then coma… 2/3 of the patients eventually recovered and became immune” (M)
        
        Type of RNA virus
        
        Vector Borne, transmitted by mosquito Aedes aegypti (M)
        
        Case fatality rates are lower in Africa than South America (M) are the two main areas where they are endemic (M)
      - Re-emerging infectious diseases:
        
        Diseases that re-appear after their incidence has significantly declined ◦ Malaria,TB, Antibiotic-resistant infections (J)
    - - spillover requires several factors to align, including the ecological, epidemiological and behavioural determinants of pathogen exposure, and the within-human factors that affect susceptibility to infection. (K)
      - Spillover transmission is promoted by successive processes that enable an animal pathogen to establish infection in a human. (K)
      - Spillover requires the pathogen to pass every barrier and thus can only occur when gaps align in each successive barrier within an appropriate window in space and time (K)
      - if human exposure occurs through mechanisms that aggregate and disperse pathogens shed by many individuals (through accumulation in the environment, sustained survival after exiting the host, and dispersal through rain, rivers and flood waters), the detailed dynamics
        in reservoir hosts do not matter because they get integrated out by the environmental reservoir (K)
    - - The World Bank estimated that 6 major zoonotic disease epidemics during 1997–2009 resulted in an economic loss of >$80 billion (L)
      - Mitigating the impact of endemic and emerging zoonotic diseases of public health importance requires multisectoral collaboration and interdisciplinary partnerships. (L)
      - A successful zoonotic disease outbreak response requires 1) the ability to detect the outbreak using established surveillance systems including event-based reporting; 2) adequate laboratory capability to confirm the outbreak etiology; 3) a workforce trained to respond and perform descriptive and analytical epidemiology for animal and human diseases; 4) the ability to implement appropriate control and prevention measures; and 5) an outbreak and emergency management system in place to coordinate multisectoral response activities at the national to subnational levels (L)
      - Effective zoonotic disease prevention, detection, and response requires close collaboration, including well-defined roles and responsibilities among the animal, human, and environment health sectors. (L)
      - The prevention and control strategies of zoonotic diseases will vary by disease and availability of proven interventions (L)