Impact of cadmium exposure on human health with a focus on Bangladesh

Abstract

The environment in which we claim to “live” in has become a huge reservoir of toxic metals. Human health is under constant risk of deterioration due to increasing chronic exposure of such metals that adversely affect the quality of life of people. The deterioration of human health due to exposure to heavy metals has become a major issue of concern worldwide. Although adverse health effects caused by heavy metals have been known for a long time, exposure to heavy metals continues, and is even increasing in some parts of the world, particularly in less developed countries, even though emissions have declined in most developed countries over the last 100 years. One such heavy metal with a high toxicity found in the earth’s crust, associated with zinc, lead and copper ores is cadmium. Exposure to cadmium has long been recognized as a health hazard, both in industry and in general populations with high exposure. However, cadmium is toxic at very low exposure levels and has acute and chronic effects on health and environment which is thus the cause of great concern. The parts of body that are potentially affected from exposures to cadmium mainly involve the kidney, liver, lung, heart and bone. If one is exposed to cadmium or cadmium compounds, a number of factors will determine whether or not the person will be affected. These factors include not only dose and duration of contact, how he/she comes in contact with it but parameters such as age, sex, diet, family traits, lifestyle, and state of health also tend to contribute to determine the extent of exposure (ATSDR, 2012). The objective of this paper is to review available information on possible toxicities of cadmium on human health. Our aim in this study was to identify the possible impacts of cadmium on human health, with the ultimate goal of proposing the rationale for future quantitative research of cadmium in Bangladesh