Abstract
About 30–35 chemical elements are required in living organisms (Fig. 3.1). In addition, a living body may contain all naturally occurring isotopes. Nonessential elements may get into a living body inadvertently, as it does not have a very effective means to reject unnecessary entities while incorporating the necessary ones. There is some correlation between the concentration in the human body and that in its surroundings. Figure 10.1 shows such a correlation with the concentration in the ocean. Some of these nonessential elements are tolerated by the body, as they are not extremely toxic. However, others can be toxic and dealt with by the body, although often not sufficiently, so that toxic effects manifest beyond the safe threshold (Chaps. 16 and 17 in Ochiai (2011)).
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Ochiai, E. (2014). Chemicals and Their Behaviors in Biological Systems. In: Hiroshima to Fukushima. Science Policy Reports. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38727-2_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38727-2_10
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