Abstract
Nanotechnology is receiving enormous funding. Very little however is known about the health dangers of this technology so far. Chronic tonsillitis is one of a number of diseases called idiopathic. Among other factors, the tonsils are exposed to suspended particles in inhaled air including nano particles. The objective of this study was to detect and evaluate metallic particles in human tonsil tissue diagnosed with chronic tonsillitis and in amniotic fluid as a comparison. . Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) was used for identification of solid particles in a total of 64 samples of routinely analyzed biopsy and cytologic material. Almost all samples were found to contain solid particles of various metals. The most frequent, regardless of diagnosis, were iron, chromium, nickel and aluminium. The size, determined using SEM, varied from around 500 nm to 25 µm. The majority formed aggregates of several micrometers in size but there were a significant number of smaller (sub-micrometer or nano-sized) particles present. The incidence of metallic particles was similar in child and adult tissues. The difference was in composition: the presence of several metals in adults was due to occupational exposure. The presence of metallic particles in pathologically altered tissues may signal an alternative causation of some diseases. The ethiopathogenic explanation of these diseases associated with the presence of nano-sized particles in the organism has emerged into a new field of pathology, nanopathology.
Highlights
Nano-sized particles (< 100 nm) have properties that may pose risks to human health and the environment
Various metal-bearing solid particles were detected in all samples analyzed as single micro-sized particles or aggregates consisting of many submicron particles reaching the nano-scale
Elemental analysis using EDX determined the presence of metals; we can assume that metals, such as Fe, Zn, Pb, Sn, and Al, are present in the form of their oxides or other compounds
Summary
Nano-sized particles (< 100 nm) have properties that may pose risks to human health and the environment. Nano-sized particles have been described in many studies to be significantly different in terms of their reactivity and behavior in various environmental media (air, water, and soil). This particle fraction settles by gravitation very slowly when emitted into the atmosphere, and the risk of inhalation exposure is higher than micrometer particles. Various metals are abundant components of particulate air pollution, e.g. wear of automotive brake pad releases Fe, Cu, Ba, and Sb into the environment[7] Various anthropogenic processes, such as cigarette smoking, may produce these metal-containing particles where the smoke may contain metals such as Al, Cd, Ni, Pb, and Cu in the form of very fine particles[1]. The ethiopathogenic explanation of these diseases associated with the presence of nano-sized particles in the organism has emerged into a new field of pathology, nanopathology
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