Heavy metals are not biodegradable (Tam & Wong, 1995), non-toxic when in
elemental form of freedom but dangerous for living organisms due to cationic
binding capacity with a short carbon chain leads to the accumulation in the body born
animals after years (Shahidul & Tanaka, 2004). For humans, there are about 12
3
elements toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, aluminum, arsenic, cadmium,
nickel ... Some heavy metals are found in the body and essential for the health
of human health, such as iron, zinc, magnesium, cobalt, manganese,
molybdenum and copper, although in small amounts, but it is present in the process of
metabolism. However, excessive levels of the essential elements can be hazardous
to the life of the organism (Foulkes, 2000). The remaining metal elements are
not essential elements and can cause highly toxic when present in the body,
but can only show toxicity when they enter the food chain. These elements
include mercury, nickel, lead, arsenic, cadmium, aluminum, platinum and copper in the form of
metal ions. They enter the body through pathways of the body to absorb as coral
absorption, ingestion and through the skin. If heavy metals enter the body and accumulate inside the cells
larger than the cells analyzed them, they will increase and the poisoning will appear
(Foulkes, 2000). Thus it is not only poisoning with high content of
heavy metals, but also when low concentrations and prolonged time to reach the levels
of toxicity. Toxicity of heavy metals is expressed through:
(1) Some heavy metals can be moved from a low toxicity to highly toxic form
than in some environmental conditions, eg mercury.
(2) accumulation and biological amplifier of these metals through the chain of formula
feeding may compromise the normal physiological activity and eventually cause
danger to human health.
(3) the toxicity of the elements this can be in a very low concentration of about
0.1-10 mg.l-1 (Alkorta et al., 2004).
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