Objective
Objectives:
. To quantify levels of mercury, zinc, iron and other heavy metals in toenail clippings from 700 cases of acute myocardial infarction and 700 population controls recruited in 8 European countries and Israel in the EURAMIC study.
. To evaluate the association and shape of the dose-response relationship between the levels of these heavy metals and the risk of first nonfatal myocardial infarction in men.
Heavy metals are highly reactive substances which may be involved in oxidative reactions, may act as cofactors for different types of enzymes, and may exert other direct physiologic effects. With few exceptions, however, the consequences of long-term exposure to subtoxic levels of heavy metals on cardiovascular risk have not been studied in detail. Further research is needed to evaluate whether mercury intake increases cardiovascular risk, to precise the role of zinc, chromium, iron and other heavy metals on the etiology of myocardial infarction, and to determine their interactions with antioxidants and fatty acids on coronary risk. The EURAMIC (EURopean study on Antioxidants, Acute Myocardial Infarction and breast Cancer) study is a multicenter study of the protective effect of antioxidants on the risk of myocardial infarction among males and of breast cancer among females in nine European countries and Israel. Adipose tissue levels of alpha-tocopherol, beta-carotene and fatty acids in 700cases of myocardial infarction and 700 population controls were obtained. Its main results have been published in peer-reviewed journals: To measure selenium intake, toenail clippings were also collected in the EURAMIC study. These clippings have been stored at room temperature and are currently available for further analysis of heavy metal levels by instrumental neutron activation analysis.
With this information, we will be able to test the following hypotheses with respect to the etiology of myocardial infarction:
1) A positive dose-response effect of mercury;
2) A protective effect of zinc;
3) A protective effect of chromium and;
4) A positive dose-response effect of iron.
Since extensive data on antioxidant levels and coronary risk factors are available in the EURAMI study, it will also be possible to evaluate the interactions of heavy metals with antioxidants and fatty acids in this large study. Our study will thus permit a thorough evaluation of the antioxidant hypothesis for myocardial infarction, which could be considered as incomplete without information on heavy metals. Keywords (max 10): coronary heart disease; risk factors; heavy metals; transition elements; mercury; zinc; iron; chromium; antioxidants; case control studies.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry transition metals
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules lipids
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology breast cancer
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine cardiology cardiovascular diseases
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins enzymes
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Coordinator
28029 Madrid
Spain
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