An overview of boron, lithium, and strontium in human health and profiles of these elements in urine of Japanese

Abstract

The biological, medical and environmental roles of trace elements have attracted considerable attention over the years. In spite of their relevance in nutritional, occupational and toxicological aspects, there is still a lack of consistent and reliable measurement techniques and reliable information on reference values. In this review our understandings of the urinary profilings of boron, lithium and strontium are summarized and fundamental results obtained in our laboratory are discussed.Over the past decade we have successfully used inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry for the determination of reference values for urinary concentrations of boron, lithium and strontium. Taking into account the short biological half-life of these elements and the fact that their major excretion route is via the kidney, urine was considered to be a suitable material for monitoring of exposure to these elements. We confirmed that urinary concentrations of boron, lithium and strontium follow a lognormal distribution. The geometric mean reference values and 95% confidence intervals were 798 μg/l (398-1599 μg/l) for boron, 23.5 μg/l (11.0-50.5 μg/l) for lithium and 143.9 μg/l (40.9-505.8 μg/l) for strontium. There were no discrepancies between our values and those previously reported. Our reference values and confidential intervals can be used as guidelines for the health screening of Japanese individuals to evaluate environmental or occupational exposure to these elements.

Urinary levels of trace elements among primary school-aged children from Italy: The contribution of smoking habits of family members

“…Furthermore, accumulating evidence provides correlations between the exposure to trace elements and various adverse effects, such as those recently found for Ti, Cu, Cd, Rb and altered heart rate variability (Feng et al, 2015), for Cs and Sb and high blood pressure (Shiue and Hristova, 2014), for Ti and Sb and the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes (Zheng et al, 2014), and for Cd and Mn and cognition and behavior in childhood (Sanders et al, 2015). Additional evidences of detrimental effects for human health, albeit more limited and recovered in occupational scenarios or in very polluted areas, were found also for Ga (Chen, 2007), Li, B, and Sr (Usuda et al, 2007). Since all the threats related to trace elements exposure, the increasing of urinary excretion of these compounds should be not overlooked.…”

“…However, the results show higher urinary levels of most of the studied compounds in children exposed to ETS compared to unexposed, with the exception of V and Pb. Several adverse effects for human health have been related to the exposure to all of the monitored trace elements (Chen, 2007;Feng et al, 2015;Jomova and Valko, 2011;Lee et al, 2012;Sanders et al, 2015;Shiue and Hristova, 2014;Usuda et al, 2007;Zheng et al, 2014). Scientific evidence of these effects has grown considerably over the years, and more and new findings continue to emerge from the researches in this field.…”

Distribution, Elimination, and Renal Effects of Single Oral Doses of Europium in Rats

“…The obtained %U E <1% is far lower than >90% boron and lithium [24], ≈20% for strontium and fluoride [25,26], and comparable to other REEs: 0.216% for yttrium [1] and 0.0063% for scandium [2].…”

Variation of Lithium Contents in Scalp Hair Samples of Different Male Psychiatric Patients Before and After Treatment with its Pharmaceutical Supplements

“…However, the suitable means for the determination and of guidelines for biological index values of Li exposure/protection have not been established [24,25]. The present study provides data on Li in scalp hair obtained from the male psychiatric patients (schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder) before and after treatment with Li supplements for 6 and 12 months and compared the resulted data with those obtained from referents of matched age groups.…”