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Nanopathology: The Health Impact of Nanoparticles
Pan Stanford Publishing Pte. Ltd., March 2008, Pages: 312
Enormous funds are currently being invested in nanotechnology, yet very little is known about how its products and by-products can interfere with organisms, both end-users and people involved in their manufacture. Similar scenarios are already widely known in the history of science, such as the exploitation of radioactivity or the controversial issue of genetically modified organisms. As nanoparticles are more or less voluntarily produced, they are almost uncontrollably disseminated in the environment and in organisms, and thus constitute a growing concern. Describing the impact of nanoparticles (and microparticles) on human and animal health, this book offers the first criteria for preventing potential problems deriving from these particles.
Nanotechnologies can represent a real innovation for human society and life. The possibility of “bottom-up” construction makes man look like God, but the wise man knows that every progress can have a negative side and too often, when he realizes that, disasters have already occurred.
The primary raison d’être of this book is to help society avoid the repeat of the mistakes made by the Curies and their followers when they discovered radioactivity and started, on the wings of enthusiasm, to use it on people affected by a number of diseases, and did that without being able to anticipate the harmful side effects of those therapies. A new trend has spread all over Europe, meetings after meetings dedicated to radiotherapy were organized, and people have even started to wear necklaces with beads of Cobalt core.
It was only a few decades later, after having paid a high price in terms of deaths, that the side effects of radioactivity became evident, but now we can use radioactive materials in a safe way daily, taking advantage from this phenomenon and the technologies it had generated.
The new frontier opened by nanotechnology especially in medicine looks extremely exciting. In the future we might see nanodevices equipped with nanomotors inserted in the blood vessels and driven to areas damaged by an infarction to destroy the thrombus or the atheroma and restore circulation, or toward the pneumothorax area to seal the lesion. Or even devices that act like guardians to check the onset of inflammations in precancerous areas.
All these may look like a dream, but, it is a dream fast becoming a reality and, before, it becomes real, it is crucial that we verify how organisms, tissues, cells react to the presence of nanoparticles, i.e. foreign bodies whose behaviour is still largely unknown.
Recent European research projects (Nanosafe1, Nanosafe2, Nanoderm, Nanopathology) have explored the possible risks of nanoparticles on human health, and their results are controversial. Some assert the safety of nanoparticles through in-vitro tests, others are more doubtful and less optimistic, while a few scientists have already presented clinical evidences of the presence of nanoparticles in pathological tissues [A.M. Gatti, 2005]. Besides other pieces of evidence, unintentionally released, nanosized particles were found in soldiers who served in former Yugoslavia during the Balkans War (1993-97). It is widely known that the explosion of Depleted Uranium bombs can develop a temperature exceeding 3000°C [Annual Report, 1978]. The magnitude of this combustion is capable of vaporizing everything.
As soon as the vaporized materials cool down, nanosized particles are created and are scattered in the environment. The inhalation or ingestion of those mainly metallic particles by humans and animals can bring about pathological effects [Nemmar A. et al., 2002]. Warfare is not the only one to be blamed for the formation of nanoparticles as a pollutant.
Car engines, industry, incineration and high-temperature procedures in general are just a few examples of particulate pollutants producers. It is easy to conclude that in more than one instance, the environment is already contaminated by nanosized particles.
It has been proved that 100-nm-sized particles when inhaled can bypass the lung barrier in 60 seconds and reach the liver in 60 minutes. It may not be possible to eliminate nanoparticles from the environment, but, awareness of their possible adverse effects on human health is important. More research are needed to determine the safest procedures to handle them.
Topics:
- How the Whole Thing Began or the Logic Path Towards a Discovery
- In-Vitro and In-Vivo Biological Behavior of Micro and Nanoparticles
- Clinical Cases: Lung, Blood, Liver, Kidney, Digestive System, Vessels, Sperm
- Six 'Detective Stories'
- War and Nanoparticles
- War and Nanoparticles; Nanoparticles in the Environment and Working Places
- Nanoparticles in Food, Cosmetics and Other Products
- New York 9/11
- The Future and Prevention Criteria
Readership:
- Scientists in academia and industry
- Ecologists
- Military personnel
- Medical doctors
Can be used as a basis for new research and as a textbook for graduate students of different subjects (medicine, biology, engineering, etc).
This book intends to help society change its mind set as in the words of John Steinbeck, Nobel Prize Winner, 1964,
“The ability to think differently today than yesterday is what separates the wise from the stubborn.”
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