Medical geology, impacts of the natural environment on human health.

In the last few decades, there has been a growing awareness that some natural environmental changes occur on a scale that affects global ecologies: atmospheric, hydrogeological, and food production systems worldwide have been transformed in ways that sometimes lead to the emergence (and/or re-emergence) of health problems in humans and animals. Although it has been recognized that geologic natural factors play key roles in a range of environmental health issues that impact the health and well-being of billions of people worldwide, there is a general lack of understanding of the importance of these factors on human and animal health amongst the general public, the biomedical/public health community and the geosciences/environmental community. Medical geology, the science that deals with the impacts of natural geologic materials and processes on animal and human health, attempts to bridge this gap by increasing the awareness about these issues in the geosciences and biomedical communities, and by stimulating increased research collaboration among these disciplines.

Thus, medical geology may be considered as a complementary discipline to the established field of environmental health focusing on how the natural environment impacts health. These impacts, both deleterious and beneficial, have been known for millennia but it is just in the last decade that scientists interested in these phenomena have begun to organize local, regional and global collaborations in this emerging discipline of medical geology.

Medical geologists are scientists (geoscientists, biomedical/public health scientists, chemists, toxicologists, epidemiologists, hydrologists, geographers, etc.) who generally collaborate on a wide range of environmental health problems seeking causes and solutions. Among these problems are the health impacts of natural dusts; naturally occurring elements in surface water, ground water and soil; geologic processes such as volcanoes, erosions, earthquakes, tsunamis and others; occupational exposure to natural materials, natural radiation, etc. Many medical geology studies have been focused on the health impacts of dust from various origins. Dust particles are a widely dispersed component of the Earth’s atmosphere, often forming extensive plumes that derive from volcanoes, dust storms, long-range transport episodes of desert dust (the so called intercontinental dust), and displacements through natural processes such as landslides and earthquakes. These phenomena occur on all major continents including, for instance, mobilization of Saharan dust to southern Europe and the Americas.

Medical geologists study the source, occurrence, distribution, concentration, chemistry, crystallinity and morphology of minerals (such as asbestos, erionite, silica, pyrite, etc.) that may cause health problems. Medical geologists try to determine the sources, transport and fate of potentially harmful trace elements such as arsenic, fluorine, selenium, copper, etc. They try to determine the pathways of exposure and produce maps that illustrate local, regional and/or global geologic and geochemical factors and their relationship to existing or potential health problems. A good example of collaborative research on medical geology is the arsenic issue in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. In this region, medical geologists are working to determine the source of the high arsenic levels in well water that put at risk the health of up to 100 million people.

Interciencia marks an important step in the growth and maturation of medical geology in Latin America and globally. The manuscript included in this issue of the journal, by Tommaso Tosiani, is only one of many which the journal is anticipating publishing. In his article, Tosiani describes the wide range of medical geology issues affecting Venezuela, with a particular focus on the sources, distribution and health effects of trace elements. The publication of this manuscript is a further demonstration that medical geology is taking strong root in the continent and that biomedical/health professionals and geoscientists will soon be demonstrating its value to Venezuela and to the rest of the world. On behalf of the International Medical Geology Association and its worldwide membership, I congratulate Interciencia for its vision and interest on the field of Medical Geology, and wish it many more years of continuous publishing of outstanding work.

José A. Centeno,

Co-Chairman, International Medical Geology Association