How Does Cobalt Affect The Lungs?

Cobalt is a metal with a variety of industrial uses including the manufacturing of hard metals. Cobalt exposure can cause both occupational asthma and interstitial lung disease (ILD) [1]. However, development of cobalt-related ILD has only been reported in workers in the hard metal and diamond bonded tool industries.

How do heavy metals affect the lungs?

Heavy metal exposure may contribute to inflammation in the lungs via increased oxidative stress, resulting in tissue destruction and obstructive lung function (OLF).

What is cobalt lung?

We describe a patient who developed pathologically documented giant cell interstitial pneumonia following regular use of an e-cigarette. This disorder has been termed hard metal pneumoconiosis, or cobalt lung, due to its close association with exposure to hard metal (cemented tungsten carbide with cobalt) [2].

What happens if metal is in your lungs?

Metallic dusts deposited in the lung may give rise to pulmonary fibrosis and functional impairment, depending on the fibrogenic potential of the agent and on poorly understood host factors. Inhalation of iron compounds causes siderosis, a pneumoconiosis with little or no fibrosis.

What is hard metal lung disease?

Hard metal lung disease (HMLD) is a rare disease caused by exposure to particles of hard metal alloys, whose major components are tungsten carbide (approximately 90%) and cobalt (approximately 10%) or cobalt and diamond.

Can heavy metals affect mental health?

Heavy metals often affect the brain and spinal cord and may cause: Changes in mental status or personality. Nervousness. Feel irritated easily.

Can heavy metals make you sick?

Heavy metal poisoning can happen when you’re exposed to a lot of certain types of metals. It makes you sick and affects the way your body works. Heavy metals, like arsenic, lead, mercury, and others, are all around us.

Can you inhale cobalt?

Cobalt can enter your body when you breathe in air containing cobalt dust, when you drink water that contains cobalt, when you eat food that contains cobalt, or when your skin touches materials that contain cobalt.

How does cobalt affect the heart?

Exposure to cobalt, related to medicinal or recreational ingestion or industrial contact, can cause a reversible depression of cardiac systolic dysfunction, which can be readily distinguished from other forms of nonischemic dilated cardiomyopathy.

What happens if you inhale cobalt?

* Cobalt may cause an asthma-like allergy. Future exposure can cause asthma attacks with shortness of breath, wheezing, cough, and/or chest tightness. * Cobalt may affect the heart, thyroid, liver and kidneys. * Repeated exposure to Cobalt dust can cause scarring of the lungs (fibrosis) even if no symptoms are noticed.

Can you accidentally inhale a pill?

Aspirated Pill is a rare type of foreign body and may present innocuously as breathlessness or asthma or dry cough and hence can be easily missed. Multivitamins and herbal supplements are common preparations, often used as nonprescription medications and can cause serious complications if they go down the bronchi.

Can objects go into your lungs?

Q: Can a foreign body be aspirated into the lungs? A: Yes. An object inhaled into the airways can cause an obstruction in the bronchi, which are the two passageways that deliver air into the lungs. Foreign bodies can also become lodged in the larynx/voice box and the trachea/windpipe.

Can you inhale metals?

Heavy metals can enter your body by: Absorbing into your skin. Breathing in or inhaling tiny metal molecules.

What are crunchy lungs?

Crepitus in the lungs refers to the sound and sensation associated with subcutaneous emphysema, a condition in which air is trapped under the skin. It is characterized by the palpable or audible popping, crackling, grating, or crunching sensation that can occur when air is pushed through the soft tissue in the chest.

Can your lungs get hard?

Pulmonary fibrosis scars and thickens lung tissue. It impacts the connecting tissue in the lung and the alveoli (air sacs inside the lungs). The lung damage gradually gets worse over time. Hard, stiff lung tissues don’t expand as well as they should, making it harder to breathe.

What is silicosis in the lungs?

Silicosis is a long-term lung disease caused by inhaling large amounts of crystalline silica dust, usually over many years. Silica is a substance naturally found in certain types of stone, rock, sand and clay. Working with these materials can create a very fine dust that can be easily inhaled.

Can metals cause depression?

Heavy metals.
You can trace the origins of these particular toxins to industrial factories, dental amalgams, welding equipment, cigarette smoke and old galvanized water pipes. Heavy metal toxicity can disturb your brain chemistry causing depression and anxiety; it can also significantly weaken the immune system.

Can heavy metals cause psychosis?

Common symptoms of poisoning from these metals may include gastrointestinal, renal, and neurological symptoms, such as headaches, irritability, psychosis, stupor, coma, and convulsions.

Can heavy metals cause seizures?

Because heavy metals are neurotoxic, meaning that they can wreak havoc on the brain and nervous system, it should not be surprising that overexposure can result in epilepsy or non-epileptic seizures in children.

Where do heavy metals come from?

Sources of heavy metals include mining, industrial production (foundries, smelters, oil refineries, petrochemical plants, pesticide production, chemical industry), untreated sewage sludge and diffuse sources such as metal piping, traffic and combustion by-products from coal-burning power stations.

How does poison affect the body?

The effects produced by poisons may be local (hives, blisters, inflammation) or systemic (hemorrhage, convulsions, vomiting, diarrhea, clouding of the senses, paralysis, respiratory or cardiac arrest). Agricultural pesticides are often poisonous to humans. Some industrial chemicals can be very toxic or carcinogenic.