Environmental Heavy Metals with Their Benefits and Risks for Human Health
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Toxicology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 February 2026 | Viewed by 826
Special Issue Editor
Interests: Heavy metals; Heavy metal uptake; Heavy metal disposition, Heavy metal homeostasis; Haber Weiss reaction; Fenton reaction; Benefits and risks for human health; Environmental pollution
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
All heavy metals, in principle, have been generated in the universe before they arrive on Earth, where they are found as ubiquitous pollutants of air, water, and food and are unintentionally consumed by humans. With respect to human health, some heavy metals like iron or copper are beneficial as essential elements to ensure the well-being of humans, provided they have the genes allowing for heavy metal homeostasis and are genetically not determined for Wilson disease (copper) or hemochromatosis (iron). On the contrary, other heavy metals such as cadmium and arsenic are not elements essential but rather are risk factors for human life and health because they are taken up by healthy individuals who cannot provide adequate removal.
For the current Special Issue, we would like to include papers on heavy metals with a focus on experimental and clinical studies that, preferably, consider molecular aspects in close relation to clinical and health factors with experimentally tested hypotheses. This may help provide experimentally tested hypotheses. Consequently, potential authors may be toxicologists, biochemists, epidemiologists, environmental regulators, and clinicians, covering the large group of environmental heavy metals and including their interactions with specific metabolic pathways.
Prof. Dr. Rolf Teschke
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- heavy metals
- metal compound
- iron
- copper
- cadmium
- arsenic
- oxidative stress
- cell death
- toxicology
- Wilson disease
- hemochromatosis
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