Cadmium in human population

Abstract

Due to man's activity, trace metals are slowly being redistributed in the environment. During the Iast decades, concentrated metal deposits that are confined in the earth's crust and which are usually harmless to living beings, have been exploited at an increasing rate and discharged partly in the environment. Among these metals, cadmium has raised the most concern because of its high toxicity coupled with an exceptional tendency to accumulate in the human organism. Although the acute toxicity of cadmium on the lung and the gastrointestinal tract has been known for a long time ~1,1~ it was only in the 1950 s that one first became really aware of the danger resulting from long term exposure to this metal. In 1942, Nicaud et al. 66, when examining French workers in an alkaline accumulator factory, found several cases of severe osteoporosis with pseudofractures of the bones, associated with an impairment of the general health. A few years later, in Sweden, Friberg 25,26 conducted a toxicological study on workers exposed to CdO dust in an electrical battery plant. He reported emphysema and .renal damage characterized by a proteinuria rich in low molecular weight proteins. However, the greatest concern over cadmium pollution was triggered when it appeared that chronic cadmium poisoning was not restricted to industrial workers, but could constitute a health hazard to the general population. In Japan, contamination of water and rice by cadmium was responsible, in combination with other nutritional factors, for the outbreak of a severe bone disease (Itai-Itai disease) 3~ In industrialized countries, the cadmium body burden of the general ~opulation has increased during the 20th