Environment and Our Health
It is widely known that the state of our environment affects us in many ways. Minerals and rocks are going to have some impact on human and animal populations because that is what the earth is composed of. Medical geology brings professionals from both the medicine field and the geology field to help us understand this relationship. There are two priorities that have been established within the medical geology field, "(1) the study of trace elements, especially their bioavailability and (2) a need to establish baseline, or background levels of contaminants/ xenobiotics/ potentially harmful but naturally occurring materials in water, soil, air, food, and animal tissue." The elements and minerals in the land effect people and animals immensely especially when there is a close relationship between the two. Those who depend heavily on the land are faced with one of two problems. First, those who live in places such as Maputaland, South Africa are exposed to heavily impoverished soils which result in a number of diseases caused by mineral imbalances. Secondly, those in areas such as India and Bangladesh are often exposed to an excess of elements in the land resulting in mineral toxicity. We do of course need some naturally occurring elements however most can be extremely detrimental to our health. There is a direct link between health and the earth because we ingest and breath in all of these chemicals and for the most part we do it unknowingly.
Read more about this topic: Medical Geology
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