Toxicity and Binding of Trace Metals

To the Editor: The medical literature is replete with attempts to show correlations between various diseases and concentrations of trace metals in body tissues and fluids, especially blood and urine. Indeed, the suggestion has been made that we will eventually find that trace metals are an important factor in many numerous diseases, and that these diseases might be controlled by manipulation of the appropriate trace-metal concentration.¹ Such optimistic predictions should be tempered with the caution that the total concentration of a particular trace metal may not be the important factor to be measured. The specific chemical form or forms in.