What makes the heavy metals: cadmium, mercury, lead, and arsenic so dangerous compared to other materials. If I work with iron and silver every day for 30 years I have a bad back. If I work with mercury every day for 30 years I’m either insane (“mad as a hatter”) or literally dead. What makes these 4 elements so bad for living things, and why are poisonings with these elements so hard to cure?
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Metals are relatively highly reactive to common organic materials (such as fat or nerve endings), and part of being a ‘heavy metal’ is that once they react they don’t leave. This means that once they get into a cell, the cell’s molecules are no longer available for their original purpose; this isn’t a huge problem for small amounts of redundant cells (like fat), but it *is* a huge problem for critical cells (like nerve endings that control breathing) or cells that interact with the other systems (like fat cells providing form and protection to skin and organs, or reproductive cells becoming a child). The fact that many small amounts of heavy metal eventually become a huge amount is the thing that changes ‘small amounts’ into ‘critical amounts’ over time.
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