The discipline of geochemistry provides insights into how the natural environment impacts animal and human health and is the basis for the important subdiscipline of medical geochemistry. Among the more important contributions of medical geochemistry are the maps illustrating the distribution, on various scales, of potentially toxic trace elements. Chemical analyses of surface water and groundwater, stream sediments, and soil horizons have been published by numerous countries covering large geographic regions. Among the most comprehensive compilations is the Geochemical Atlas of Europe containing analytical data on more than 50 elements from stream water, stream sediment, and three soil horizons in 26 countries. Geochemical processes play a variety of important roles in controlling how humans are exposed to potential toxicants in a wide range of geogenic or anthropogenic materials. Once taken up by the body, geogenic materials, such as dusts, soils, and water, and their contained toxicants can react chemically with the body's fluids, and these chemical interactions can play key roles in toxicity. In addition to the harmful effects of some geogenic materials, certain clays have demonstrated remarkable antimicrobial properties when applied to open wounds with bacterial infections. Numerous case studies illustrate the potential human health impacts of organic compounds from geogenic sources, especially those from fossil energy deposits. This is a challenging area of study since disease(s) resulting from exposures may be chronic rather than acute and involve complex mixtures of substances. Medical geochemistry can play a key role in helping to protect the safety of drinking water by identifying the sources, concentrations, and forms of potentially harmful elements, such as arsenic, mercury, and fluorine, in natural waters. Chemical and mineralogical characterization of coals has helped to identify the sources of health problems afflicting millions of people worldwide. © 2024 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Medical geology (geology and health) is one of the most diverse, multidisciplinary scientific fields having practitioners from the geosciences, public health, epidemiology, toxicology, environmental health, medical geography, and occupational health, just to name a few of the many disciplines that are relevant to this field. Moreover, these researchers are working in more than 100 countries publishing their research in hundreds of geographically and scientifically diverse journals. This diversity, though healthy, makes it difficult to keep up with current, relevant, research papers. This chapter informs on many different paths in getting information on medical geology. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

This edited volume provides a framework for integrating methods and information drawn from geological and medical sciences and provides case studies in medical geology to illustrate the usefulness of this framework for crafting environmental and public health policies related to natural materials. The relevance of medical geology research to policy decisions is a topic rarely discussed, and this volume attempts to be a unique source for researchers and policy makers in the field of medical geology in addressing this gap in practical medical geology applications. The book’s four sections establish this framework in detail using risk assessment, case studies, data analyses and specific medical geology techniques. Following an introduction to medical geology in the context of risk assessment and risk management, the second section discusses specific methods used in medical geology in the categories of geoscience, biomedicine, and data sources. The third section discusses the medical geology of natural materials, energy use, and environmental and workplace impacts. This section includes specific case studies in medical geology, and describes how the methods and data from the previous section are used in a medical geology analysis. The fourth section includes a guide to the medical geology literature and provides some examples of medical geology programs in Asia and Africa. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

This chapter focuses on the source, pathways, exposure routes, benefits, and biosynthesis of iodine and its health consequences. Iodine is a heavy, greyish-black crystalline solid with a characteristic shinning metallic property. Iodine plays a vital role in human, plant, and animal life. Apart from its use in curing thyroid dysfunction, iodine in its liquid or solid form is also useful in many ways for scientific purposes such as disinfectant in water treatment, cleaning products for household, and base antiseptics in wound cleaning and for sterilizing skin for surgical procedures. Iodine is distributed in the natural environment through interaction between the marine, atmosphere, and terrestrial environment. It occurs in relative abundance in the marine environment, in which the ocean is known as the reservoir of iodine. It escapes from the oceans as iodide in sea spray or as iodide and methyl iodide produced by marine organisms. It is deposited on land (soil, plants, and water) and atmosphere through volatilization, wet and dry deposition, and sorption and absorption processes. Humans get exposed to iodine majorly via the ingestion of food. World Health Organization (WHO) recommends daily iodine consumption of 75–150 μg depending on age groups. This value represents an accumulation of 90% from food intake and 10% from water. Iodine is an essential element that is required in minute quantity in the human body for the biosynthesis of the thyroid hormones. In the thyroid hormones, iodine is of concern in normalizing human body growth, maturation and development, cell and tissue growth, and body metabolism. It is also essential for the development of the fetal nervous system. This explains why pregnant and lactating women require more iodine than other adults. In the same manner, dairy cows require more iodine than other cows because they release about 10% of their iodine intake during the lactation period. However, deviation from the daily consumption of iodine (either an optimum decrease or increase) could result in several health conditions. At a deficient level, it could result in brain damage, leading to mental retardation and cretinism in children and other thyroid dysfunctions such as goiter, hypothyroidism, and hyperthyroidism. At the excessive and toxic level, it mostly affects the thyroid hormone secretion that could result in hyperthyroidism and autoimmune thyroiditis, especially in susceptible individuals. It is worth noting that of all health issues caused by iodine, brain damage, especially in children, is the most devastating, which poses a serious health concern because it could lead to irreversible health conditions. Also, reported cases of health issues caused by iodine deficiency far outweigh those caused by iodine excess. Globally, efforts have been made to combat the issue of iodine deficiency through the implementation of the universal salt iodination programs, which promote household usage of iodized salts and other iodine supplementation in iodine-deficient areas. This program has been found to be successful as the number of countries which have sufficient iodine intake level has increased from 43 countries in the year 2004 to 135 countries in the year 2019. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

Water plays an important role in the body. Normal–weight adults need 2.0–2.5 L/day of water for proper hydration, and it is known for centuries that minerals from the water are important for humans and animals. Different minerals are important in different ranges for different organs and functions. Due to the mass–related need for the minerals, they are labeled macro and micro elements, respectively. Weathering of rocks is responsible for most of the minerals appearing in water. The importance of minerals from drinking water have been denied for some time. However, in districts of Norway, high frequencies of softening of bone tissue among domestic animals, later identified as phosphorous-deficient soils and water, was known hundreds of years ago, and parts of China had increased levels of heart failure, nowadays identified as low selenium. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, well–off people in Europe went to health resorts to drink their specific water, water chosen with mineral content expected to be good for a specific complaint.

The discipline of geochemistry provides insights into how the natural environment impacts animal and human health and is the basis for the important subdiscipline of medical geochemistry. Among the more important contributions of medical geochemistry are the maps illustrating the distribution, on various scales, of potentially toxic trace elements. Chemical analyses of surface water and groundwater, stream sediments, and soil horizons have been published by numerous countries covering large geographic regions. Among the most comprehensive compilations is the Geochemical Atlas of Europe containing analytical data on more than 50 elements from stream water, stream sediment, and three soil horizons in 26 countries. Geochemical processes play a variety of important roles in controlling how humans are exposed to potential toxicants in a wide range of geogenic or anthropogenic materials. Once taken up by the body, geogenic materials such as dusts, soils, and water and their contained toxicants can react chemically with the body's fluids, and these chemical interactions can play key roles in toxicity. In addition to the harmful effects of some geogenic materials, certain clays have demonstrated remarkable antimicrobial properties when applied to open wounds with bacterial infections. Numerous case studies illustrate the potential human health impacts of organic compounds from geogenic sources, and especially those from fossil energy deposits. This is a challenging area of study since disease(s) resulting from exposures may be chronic rather than acute, and involve complex mixtures of substances. Medical geochemistry can play a key role in helping to protect the safety of drinking water by identifying the sources, concentrations, and forms of potentially harmful elements such as arsenic, mercury, and fluorine in natural waters. Chemical and mineralogical characterization of coals has helped to identify the sources of health problems afflicting millions of people worldwide.

Uranium (U) is a chemo-toxic, radiotoxic and even a carcinogenic element. Due to its radioactivity, the effects of U on humans health have been extensively investigated. Prolonged U exposure may cause kidney disease and cancer. The geological distribution of U radionuclides is still a great concern for human health. Uranium in groundwater, frequently used as drinking water, and general environmental pollution with U raise concerns about the potential public health problem in several areas of Asia. The particular paleo-geological hallmark of India and other Southern Asiatic regions enhances the risk of U pollution in rural and urban communities. This paper highlights different health and environmental aspects of U as well as uptake and intake. It discusses levels of U in soil and water and the related health issues. Also described are different issues of U pollution, such as U and fertilizers, occupational exposure in miners, use and hazards of U in weapons (depleted U), U and plutonium as catalysts in the reaction between DNA and H2O2, and recycling of U from groundwater to surface soils in irrigation. For use in medical geology and U research, large databases and data warehouses are currently available in Europe and the United States.

Emerging medical problems present medical practitioners with many difficult challenges. Emergent disciplines may offer the medical community new opportunities to address a range of these diseases. One such emerging discipline is medical geology, a science that is dealing with the influence of natural environmental factors on the geographical distribution of health in humans and animals. It involves the study of the processes and causes of diseases and also the use research findings to present solutions to health problems.

Water plays an important role in the body. Normal–weight adults need 2.0–2.5 L/day of water for proper hydration, and it is known for centuries that minerals from the water are important for humans and animals. Different minerals are important in different ranges for different organs and functions. Due to the mass–related need for the minerals, they are labeled macro and micro elements, respectively. Weathering of rocks is responsible for most of the minerals appearing in water. The importance of minerals from drinking water have been denied for some time. However, in districts of Norway, high frequencies of softening of bone tissue among domestic animals, later identified as phosphorous-deficient soils and water, was known hundreds of years ago, and parts of China had increased levels of heart failure, nowadays identified as low selenium. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, well–off people in Europe went to health resorts to drink their specific water, water chosen with mineral content expected to be good for a specific complaint.