Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Experimental Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Port-Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Department of Cardiovascular and Endocrine-Metabolic Diseases, and Ageing, Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Italian National Institute of Health), Rome, Italy.
J Environ Sci Health C Toxicol Carcinog. 2020;38(1):21-60. doi: 10.1080/26896583.2020.1714370. Epub 2020 Apr 27.
Nigeria receives copious annual precipitation to nourish its forests and agriculture, it has an extensive river drainage system, and it possesses valuable mineral deposits that stimulate both commercial and artisan mining activities. The combination of these features complicates Nigeria's efforts to produce adequate amounts of healthy foods to support its population. Toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium, and mercury, and toxic metalloids such as arsenic, are also present in its mineral deposits and they migrate gradually into the soil and water of Nigeria by natural means. However, mining activities can liberate higher levels of toxic metals, which adversely affect Nigerian ecosystems and its food chains. Thus, environmental pollution due to anthropogenic activities is a major public health concern in Nigeria. This review covers the importance of native Nigerian and African wild and cultivated plants along with livestock and wild animals as sentinel species to evaluate heavy metals as environmental stressors and the use of sentinel species for food safety monitoring and for predicting potential risks to human health.
尼日利亚拥有丰富的年降水量来滋养其森林和农业，拥有广泛的河流排水系统，并且拥有有价值的矿产资源，这刺激了商业和手工业采矿活动。这些特征的结合使得尼日利亚难以生产足够数量的健康食品来养活其人口。其矿产中也存在有毒重金属如铅、镉和汞，以及有毒类金属如砷，它们会通过自然方式逐渐迁移到尼日利亚的土壤和水中。然而，采矿活动会释放出更高水平的有毒金属，这对尼日利亚的生态系统及其食物链造成不利影响。因此，人为活动造成的环境污染是尼日利亚的一个主要公共卫生问题。本综述涵盖了本地尼日利亚和非洲野生和栽培植物以及牲畜和野生动物作为监测物种的重要性，以评估重金属作为环境胁迫因素，以及利用监测物种进行食品安全监测和预测对人类健康的潜在风险。
