Kidney jellyfish

Those of us who have been stung by a jellyfish know the pain this can cause. In the case of the Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish, the pain is intense and is accompanied by many other symptoms, including pain in the muscles in the injured hmb or even the whole body, pain when breathing, and even breakdown of red blood cells and kidney failure. The toxin, physalitoxin, is a large protein which is lethal to mice at a dose of 0.2 mg per kg body weight, that is a lethal dose in humans would be about 12 mg. 

Zinc is accumulated in gastropods, jellyfish, and sea anemones by an enrichment factor of 3.2 x 104. Scallops concentrate zinc from sea water by a factor of 2.8 x 104 the metal is preferentially accumulated in the kidneys of scallops where 2630 ppm have been found (material dried at 110 °C)59). 

The most common phthalate plasticisers are di-2-ethyl hexyl phthalate (DEHP), di-isodecyl phthalate (DIDP), and di-isononyl phthalate (DINP). Phthalate use has been controversial for years becanse of its snspected health hazards, especially in the case of DEEIP. In both wildlife and laboratory animals, phthalates have been linked to a range of reproductive health effects, with claims that most of them can function as an endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC), and also as cancer-causing agents (specifically in the liver and kidneys). Snch negative effects that phthalates are suspected to have on health have been attribnted to short ester chains (< C9). In fact, phthalates are already distributed worldwide in the environment. Some phthalates are even found in deep-sea jellyfish 1,000 meters below the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean. A number of studies have shown that most people are probably contaminated by substantial quantities of these chemicals, and yet for hnmans, no safe level of exposure to phthalates has been determined. There are also claims about the leaching of certain phthalate plasticisers from biomedical plastics (e.g., intravenous tubes) and hence directly into the patients bloodstream. In one snch stndy, it was shown that about 60% of the DEHP/DOP had migrated to the patient, while almost all of the bis (2-ethylhexyl) adipate (DOA) has been retained in the tnbe [28]. 

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