Pollution with mercury and symptoms on the human body
Mercury is a chemical compound that can be find in the surrounding environment in metallic form, mercury salt form or organic compounds of mercury.
Metallic mercury is used in a series of household products like barometers, thermometers and fluorescent lights. Mercury in these devices is blocked and usually doesn’t cause health effects. Unfortunately, when a mercury thermometer brakes, through breathing a significant exposure to mercury will take place until the mercury vaporizes. This exposure to mercury can cause adverse health effects like: brain and kidney damage, lung irritations, eye irritations, itching, vomiting and diarrhea.
Mercury doesn’t naturally appear in food, but it can turn out in our alimentation, because it can spread through the consumption of smaller organisms that are consumed by people (i.e. fish). This is exactly what happened in the ‘50s in Japan when water pollution with mercury caused the death of 500 people. It is an important fact that usually the mercury concentration in fish is greater than that of the mercury polluted water in which they live.
Meat can also contain important quantities of mercury, especially after the pollution of feeding grounds with mercury based compounds. Mercury can enter the human body through vegetables, when the crops are irrigated with mercury polluted water.
The symptoms of mercury poisoning on the human body are:
- Destruction of the nervous system
- Destruction of brain functions
- DNA and chromosome disorders
- Allergic reactions (itching, tiredness, headaches)
- Negative effects on reproduction functions (birth and pregnancy illnesses)
Mercury poisoning of the brain can cause a decrease in learning abilities, personality disorders, hallucinations, muscle dysfunctions, memory loss. Food poisoning with mercury is very rare and is almost always caused of the pollution of the environment with mercury (like in Japan because of water pollution with mercury).