What does heavy metal cause in the body?

Metals are natural components found in the ecosystem. Metals are found throughout the world, including the atmosphere, crust, water resources, and can also accumulate in biological organisms, including plants and animals. Of the 35 existing natural metals, 23 have high specific density above 5 g/cm3 and are often referred to as heavy metals. These metals, often called heavy metals, include: antimony, tellurium, bismuth, tin, thallium, gold, arsenic, cerium, gallium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, mercury, manganese, nickel, platinum, silver, uranium, vanadium and zinc. Heavy metals are also known for their negative effects on ecosystems and living organisms. Some heavy metals, such as cobalt, chromium, copper, magnesium, iron, molybdenum, manganese, selenium, nickel and zinc, are essential nutrients required for various physiological and biochemical functions in the body and can cause diseases or syndromes when deficient.

Heavy metals are dispersed into the environment through various natural processes such as volcanic eruptions, spring waters, erosion and bacterial activity, activities including fossil fuel burning, industrial production processes, agricultural activities and nutrition. These heavy metals bioaccumulate through various processes in living organisms and the human body, causing adverse effects. In the human body, these heavy metals bind to proteins and are transported to body cells and tissues, disrupting cellular functions. Therefore, heavy metal toxicity can have various consequences in the human body. By affecting the central nervous system, it can cause mental retardation in children, dementia in adults, changes in blood cells, damage to the lungs, liver, kidneys, heart vessels and brain vessels. Additionally, long-term accumulation of heavy metals in the body can increase the progression of physical, muscular and neurological degenerative processes that mimic certain diseases such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Repeated, long-term contact with some heavy metals or their compounds can damage DNA and cause genetic mutations and various cancers. Heavy metals can disrupt the endocrine and reproductive systems by acting on the thyroid or reproductive hormones.

In a multicenter study we conducted in Turkey in 2021, we found findings that heavy metals cause narrowing of the heart vessels. Until now, the scientific world has focused on cholesterol as the cause of narrowing of the arteries. The study suggests that this may be the "missing link" in heart attacks that has been overlooked so far when it was selected as the best research at the international medical congress called ASIA PCR held in Singapore this year. When assessing the risk of heart attack, the medical community looks at patients' blood pressure, smoking and cholesterol levels and gives weight to these risk factors. However, these are insufficient to explain deaths from cardiovascular diseases. When the results of this research and previous literature are evaluated, we think that blood heavy metal level measurement should be routine in the examination and analysis of cardiovascular diseases and many other diseases.