Heavy Metal Poisoning and Cardiovascular Disease.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Toxicology Volume 2011, Article ID 870125, 21 pages doi:10.1155/2011/870125 Review Article Heavy Metal Poisoning and Cardiovascular Disease Eman M. Alissa1 and Gordon A. Ferns2 1 Faculty of Medicine, King Abdul Aziz University, P.O. Box 12713, Jeddah 21483, Saudi Arabia 2 Institute for Science Technology in Medicine, Faculty of Health, University of Keele, Staff ordshire ST4 7QB, UK Correspondence should be addressed to Eman M. Alissa, em alissa@ Received 20 May 2011; Accepted 28 June 2011 ¨ Academic Editor: Dietrich Busselberg Copyright © 2011 E. M. Alissa and G. A. Ferns. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is an increasing world health problem. Traditional risk factors fail to account for all deaths from CVD. It is mainly the environmental, dietary and lifestyle behavioral factors that are the control keys in the progress of this disease. The potential association between chronic heavy metal exposure, like arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, and CVD has been less well defined. The mechanism through which heavy metals act to increase cardiovascular risk factors may act still remains unknown, although impaired antioxidants metabolism and oxidative stress may play a role. However, the exact mechanism of CVD induced by heavy metals deserves further investigation either through animal experiments or through molecular and cellular studies. Furthermore, large-scale prospective studies with follow up on general populations using appropriate biomarkers and cardiovascular endpoints m