Modelling and measurement of Cd exposure and pathology in human volunteers living in proximity to a smelter source

对居住在冶炼厂附近的人类志愿者的镉暴露和病理学进行建模和测量

• 批准号: NE/E00895X/1
• 负责人: David Spurgeon
• 金额: $ 5.59万
• 依托单位: NERC CEH (Up to 30.11.2019)
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2007 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FE00895X%2F1
• 关键词: Modelling; measurement; Cd; exposure; pathology

Exposure of people (and environmental species) to heavy metal (e.g. cadmium, lead, mercury, copper) pollution in air, water, soil and food can cause a range of health problems. Examples of diseases associated with exposure to metal pollution are known from many parts of the world, including mercury poisoning through eating contaminated fish in Japan and poisoning by the metalloid element arsenic of many thousands of people that drank waters from contaminated wells in Bangladesh and India. Closer to home in the UK, lead was widely implicated in a range of developmental impairments occurring in children living close to busy roads who were regularly subjected to exhaust smoke from cars using the old type of leaded petrol. Because it is not well excreted from the body after ingestion, the common environmental pollutant cadmium is one metal that has been implicated in as causing of human health problems in populations living close to industrial sources. The fact that this metal tends to accumulate in the kidney makes this organ particularly sensitive to cadmium toxicity. In this exploratory project, we bring together expertise from environmental science, medicine and epidemiology and fundamental biochemistry to investigate whether and to what extent exposure to cadmium causes kidney disease. The study is focused on the area around the town of Avonmouth on the Severn Estuary near Bristol which was until recently home to one of the world's largest cadmium/lead/zinc smelters. During the active life of the plant (1928-2003), significant quantities of cadmium and other metals (including Pb, Hg and Zn) were released, contaminating the environment and exposing local residents (~50,000 people live within 5 km of the smelter). The countryside around the smelter is known to be badly contaminated with these metals and studies of their impacts on plants and animal have revealed toxic effects at locations many kilometers from the factory. Surprisingly, however, the impacts on the toxic metals on the human population are not well understood. To address this, this study will provide information on the effects of metal pollution at Avonmouth on local residents. The information gathered will be beneficial for assessing the wider effects of the cadmium pollution that is still occurring in many parts of the UK (particularly urban areas) on people's health and wellbeing. Our approach to assessing the potential for toxic effects on people in the area polluted by the smelter are to: - measure the amount of cadmium in aerial dust, soil and home grown vegetables that represent the main routes of human exposure; - use these measurements of cadmium concentration as input to existing human environmental exposure assessment methods that are used by regulatory agencies to predict cadmium exposure at contaminated sites and validate these assessments by comparing exposure predictions to measured cadmium concentrations in urine collected (in an existing project) from 200 human volunteers from known postcode locations at Avonmouth; - measuring the concentrations of the small molecules produced by normal metabolism that are present in human urine (e.g. amino acid, sugars, components of DNA and RNA) samples collected from the 200 volunteers and comparing these results to existing information on renal toxicity to establish how cadmium exposure affects kidney health for persons living in postcodes in the Avonmouth area with high, moderate and low levels of cadmium present in air, water, soil and home grown food. By funding this project, NERC would be making an investment in research that addresses fundamental issues in environment and human health research (the link between the amount of a pollutant in the environment, the amount entering the human body and the ultimate toxic effect) and would generate novel data, on human samples, cross-referenced to existing toxicity and geographical pollutant data at a real site.

人类（和环境物种）接触空气、水、土壤和食物中的重金属（例如镉、铅、汞、铜）污染会导致一系列健康问题。世界许多地方都知道与接触金属污染有关的疾病的例子，包括日本因食用受污染的鱼而导致的汞中毒，以及孟加拉国和印度成千上万人因饮用受污染的井水而导致的类金属元素砷中毒。言归正传，在英国，生活在繁忙道路附近的儿童经常受到使用旧式含铅汽油的汽车排出的废气的影响，铅与一系列发育障碍有关。由于摄入后不能很好地从体内排出，常见的环境污染物镉是一种被认为会导致生活在工业污染源附近的人群出现人类健康问题的金属。这种金属往往会在肾脏中积聚，这一事实使得该器官对镉毒性特别敏感。在这个探索性项目中，我们汇集了环境科学、医学和流行病学以及基础生物化学的专业知识，以调查镉暴露是否以及在多大程度上导致肾脏疾病。这项研究的重点是布里斯托尔附近塞文河口的埃文茅斯镇周围地区，直到最近，该地区还是世界上最大的镉/铅/锌冶炼厂之一。在工厂运营期间（1928-2003 年），释放了大量的镉和其他金属（包括铅、汞和锌），污染了环境并暴露了当地居民（约 50,000 人居住在冶炼厂 5 公里范围内） 。众所周知，冶炼厂周围的乡村受到这些金属的严重污染，对其对植物和动物影响的研究表明，在距离工厂数公里的地方都存在有毒影响。然而，令人惊讶的是，有毒金属对人类的影响尚不清楚。为了解决这个问题，本研究将提供有关埃文茅斯金属污染对当地居民影响的信息。收集到的信息将有助于评估英国许多地区（特别是城市地区）仍在发生的镉污染对人们健康和福祉的更广泛影响。我们评估对受冶炼厂污染的地区的人们造成潜在毒性影响的方法是： - 测量空气灰尘、土壤和自家种植的蔬菜中镉的含量，这些是人类接触镉的主要途径； - 使用这些镉浓度测量值作为现有人类环境暴露评估方法的输入，监管机构使用这些方法来预测污染地点的镉暴露，并通过将暴露预测与收集的尿液中测量的镉浓度进行比较来验证这些评估（在现有项目中）来自埃文茅斯已知邮政编码地点的 200 名人类志愿者； - 测量从 200 名志愿者收集的人体尿液样本中正常代谢产生的小分子（例如氨基酸、糖、DNA 和 RNA 成分）的浓度，并将这些结果与现有的肾毒性信息进行比较，以确定如何镉暴露会影响居住在埃文茅斯地区邮政编码地区的人们的肾脏健康，该地区的空气、水、土壤和自产食品中镉含量分别为高、中和低水平。通过资助该项目，NERC 将投资于解决环境和人类健康研究中的基本问题（环境中污染物的量、进入人体的量和最终毒性效应之间的联系）的研究，并将生成关于人体样本的新数据，与真实地点的现有毒性和地理污染物数据进行交叉引用。

项目成果

Variance and covariance heterogeneity analysis for detection of metabolites associated with cadmium exposure.

用于检测与镉暴露相关的代谢物的方差和协方差异质性分析。

• DOI: http://dx.10.1515/sagmb-2013-0041
• 发表时间: 2014
• 期刊: Statistical applications in genetics and molecular biology
• 作者: Salamanca BV

Outdoor and indoor cadmium distributions near an abandoned smelting works and their relations to human exposure

废弃冶炼厂附近室外和室内镉分布及其与人体暴露的关系

• DOI: http://dx.10.1016/j.envpol.2011.08.028
• 发表时间: 2011
• 期刊: Environmental Pollution
• 影响因子: 8.9
• 作者: Spurgeon D

Metabolic profiling detects early effects of environmental and lifestyle exposure to cadmium in a human population.

代谢分析可检测环境和生活方式接触镉对人群的早期影响。

• DOI: http://dx.10.1186/1741-7015-10-61
• 发表时间: 2012
• 期刊: BMC medicine
• 影响因子: 9.3
• 作者: Ellis JK