Toxic spoil

Toxic spoil Acid spoil with pH below 4.0 also spoil having amounts of minerals, such as aluminum, manganese, and iron, that adversely affect plant growth. 

Histamine is the biological amine, playing an important role in living systems, but it can also cause unnatural or toxic effects when it is consumed in lai ge amounts. It can occur with some diseases and with the intake of histamine-contaminated food, such as spoiled fish or fish products, and can lead to undesirable effects as headache, nausea, hypo- or hypertension, cai diac palpitations, and anaphylactic shock syndrome. So, there is a need to determine histamine in biological fluids and food. 

Odors are important for food discrimination, including detection of spoiled or toxic food, and perhaps surprisingly for stimulating food intake. People who become anosmic in the wake of head injuries often loose their appetite. To them food no longer appears desirable conversely odors stimulate... 

This paradox between the lack of toxicity of pure histamine and the apparent toxicity of equivalent doses of histamine in spoiled fish could be explained by the existence of potentiators of histamine toxicity in spoiled fish. These potentiators would serve to lower the threshold dose of histamine necessary to elicit scombroid poisoning symptoms in humans. 

However, these experiments were not directed at the oral toxicity of histamine. Taylor and Lieber ( ) showed that rat intestinal HMT and DAO could be inhibited iri vitro by certain amines, including some putrefactive amines that are known to occur in spoiled fish (46.47). Many of these amines inhibited only one of the two histamine-metabolizing enzymes, but several including cadaverine and aminoguanidine were effective inhibitors of both HMT and DAO (45). Mixtures of the inhibitors were not tested, but would be predicted to be quite effective in inhibiting intestinal histamine metabolism. 

Further research will be necessary to demonstrate conclusively that inhibition of histamine metabolism is responsible for the potentiation of histamine toxicity that is apparently observed in scombroid poisoning. In vivo experiments will be necessary to show that hepatic histamine metabolism is also compromised by the ingestion of suspected potentiators. Also, the effectiveness of cadaverine and other possible potentiators must be demonstrated under conditions where the histamine level exceeds the potentiator concentration by a factor of approximately 10. This concentration ratio would parallel that found in spoiled tuna more closely than the levels used in the experiments of Lyons et al. (48). 

Rodenticides are a broad class of chemicals designed to kill mammals, particularly rats and mice. Compounds that inhibit blood clotting, anticoagulants, are commonly used to control rat populations. One of the first was warfarin, which is related to the plant-derived coumadin (from spoiled sweet clover). In the 1950s rats developed resistance to warfarin, which prompted the development of more potent anticoagulants. Other rodenticides include fluoroacetic acid and zinc phosphide (very toxic) and thiourea-based compounds. The primary alternative to using rodenticides is trapping. 

Some additives clearly serve an important function. Preservatives help to prevent food from spoiling and enable processed food to be stored for much longer. They reduce the likelihood of bacterial contamination in the food we eat. Sodium nitrite is added to cured meat, for example, to prevent the growth of organisms like Clostridium botulinum, which causes severe toxicity, botulism (see pp. 249-51). Preservatives also reduce chemical degradation and so allow food to have a longer shelf life. Other additives may also have a beneficial function, for example artificial sweeteners reduce the sugar intake of people who suffer from diabetes or obesity. 

When PU is based on more volatile diisocyanates than MDI, snch as HDl (hexam-ethylene diisocyanate) or TDl (tolnene diisocyanate), these componnds spoil the gasoline or diesel oil boiling fraction of the pyrolysis oil, respectively. It is possible to eliminate the reactive and toxic diisocyanate products from the pyrolysis oil, either in a lower-temperature pyrolysis step or with the help of an adsorbent [41],... 

But not only mercury is released by mining. Mn ore mining activities taking place in the Brazilian Amazon basin as open pits (for instance in the Serra do Navio, Amapa State), represent a potential source of associated ferrous metals (such as Ni, Cr, Cu, As). Acid mine drainage contains dissolved and particulate metals in toxic concentrations, affects the pH of streams and mobilizes metals. Moreover, wind dispersal of material from unstable spoil heaps can result in local or regional atmospheric contamination. Despite the likely importance of this source in the environment, it is currently not possible to estimate the quantities of trace... 

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