description of an unusual medical case published recently in a weekly publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for control and prevention of diseases of the United States.
In the article, the experts describe a steady deterioration in the condition of the patient seeking help in a clinic. The causes of the violations initially remained a mystery, even for experienced physicians.
health Problems began at the 47-year-old resident of Sacramento in the summer. Within two weeks she gradually increased weakness, and speech deteriorated, becoming illegible.
in addition, the woman appeared distortion of visual perception, gait became shaky and in the whole body arose multiple pain.
a Patient with a strange combination of symptoms, immediately sent to the hospital, where her condition continued to deteriorate.
Mental excitement and anxiety, which remained a woman during hospitalization, it was replaced by confusion. She gradually lost consciousness and fell into a coma.
a Thorough examination revealed a high content of methylmercury in urine and blood women. Explain that this organic chemical compound is much more toxic than regular mercury and its inorganic salts.
it is Worth noting that usually the most common source of methylmercury is fish and seafood. Especially dangerous is the substance for the developing fetus, because it seriously damages the Central nervous system.
as for the unusual patient, the concentration of toxic compounds in physiological fluids has been so high that it was impossible to determine accurately using a conventional analyzers and tests. All of the sensors simply read off scale.
For this reason, the specialists of the clinic failed to assess the real situation and have involved our colleagues from the toxicology service.
Toxicologists have conducted a re-measurement and found that instead of the allowable five micrograms of mercury per liter in the blood of American women contained 2620 micrograms per liter! It is easy polscia thief that permissible concentration was exceeded by more than 500 times.
the Doctor didn’t waste any time and stage of the survey began to treat admitted to the woman kind dimercaprol. This antidote is used for binding and removing heavy metals from the body and is used when poisoning by mercury.
unfortunately, the woman’s condition was already quite advanced, and inflicted health damage is irreversible. Neurological disorders will remain with her until the end of life. A woman can’t serve themselves, to speak and even to eat by yourself, experts say.
As explained by the toxicologists in their report, due to the fact that the health of such patients deteriorates sometimes even after the termination of the poison and treatment.
However, left open the question: where in the woman’s body took such a huge concentration of deadly poison?
Employees of the Ministry of health interviewed family members of the victim and eventually identified the source of mercury, which turned out to be… whitening cream for face.
the fact that the popular in Latin America, South Africa and Asia as a skin lightening means the valid presence of small concentrations of inorganic salts of mercury. These compounds prevent the normal production of melanin, leading to skin lightening.
However, the Toxicological examination of the ill-fated tools found in the cream is not the usual inorganic compounds (which, however, is not so harmless), and methyl mercury.
That is the most poisonous organic substance found in the blood and urine of the patient. It turned out the woman used the whitening cream daily for the past seven years, buying it in Mexico.
moreover, according to relatives of the victim for the beauty, she knew that the cream was fake. However, in her opinion, he “worked” better than their counterparts, so fond of light skin continued to regularly apply it.
According to the report’s authors, this is the first SLthe case of the detection of methylmercury in cosmetic products. Experts are still trying to find out how dangerous the toxin was in the cream. Doctors fear that this sad case is unlikely to be the only one.
we will Add that earlier the authors “Conduct.Science” (nauka.vesti.ru) wrote about the dangers posed by other popular cosmetic product, and why with care to use sunscreen.
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Text: To.Science