By Brian Bienkowski, Environmental Health News
High exposure to the toxic metal cadmium could prematurely age cells, potentially triggering a number of diseases as people age, according to a new study.
In a large national study, high exposure to cadmium was linked to shorter telomeres, “bits of DNA that act as caps” on chromosomes to help stabilize genes, said Ami Zota, a George Washington University assistant professor of environmental and occupational health who led the study. Shorten those caps too much, and cells weaken, leading to diseases.
The study is the largest to examine to examine links between cadmium and cell aging in people and suggests that exposure to the heavy metal could play a role in chronic illnesses, such as heart disease and kidney disease.
Cadmium is naturally occurring on Earth, but it is also produced to make batteries and coat iron and steel. People are exposed to cadmium through contaminated food, tobacco smoke and polluted air near industrial areas.
“Our data are consistent with prior evidence that cadmium exposure can elicit measurable, harmful effects on biological health even at levels well below the current safety standards used by environmental and occupational agencies,” Zota wrote in the study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology last month.
It is a strong study that used “a huge number of samples for environmental health research,” said Andrea Baccarelli, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health who was not part of the study.
