Karen Pendergrass

Heavy metal pollution accelerates antibiotic resistance by promoting co-selection mechanisms in bacteria. Environmental, agricultural, and clinical studies reveal that metals like nickel, zinc, and copper intensify multidrug resistance through efflux pumps, gene transfer, and stress adaptation—posing a major One Health challenge to global antimicrobial stewardship.

EFSA’s 2020 update sets a nickel TDI of 13 µg/kg bw, applies MOE for acute effects, and shows high-percentile intakes in children can exceed the TDI. Grains, legumes/nuts, vegetables, and chocolate dominate exposure.

Nickel is a widely used transition metal found in alloys, batteries, and consumer products that also contaminates food and water. High exposure is linked to allergic contact dermatitis, organ toxicity, and developmental effects, with children often exceeding EFSA’s tolerable daily intake of 3 μg/kg bw. Emerging evidence shows nickel crosses the placenta, elevating risks of preterm birth and congenital heart defects, underscoring HMTC’s stricter limits to safeguard vulnerable populations.

This review details how toxic and essential heavy metals interact metabolically with the gut microbiota, influencing absorption, toxicity, and health outcomes. Findings emphasize bidirectional effects, the risks of combined exposures, and the importance of microbiome health in heavy metal safety certification.

This editorial review highlights emerging insights into lead neurotoxicity, emphasizing its epigenetic disruption, intercellular spread via extracellular vesicles, and microbiome-mediated effects on the gut–brain axis—pathways increasingly linked to cognitive decline, mood disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases.

This review integrates exposure routes, global contamination, and the mechanisms of lead toxicity, emphasizing ion mimicry, mitochondrial failure, oxidative stress, DNA damage, and epigenetic change.

Lead is a neurotoxic heavy metal with no safe exposure level. It contaminates food, consumer goods and drinking water, causing cognitive deficits, birth defects and cardiovascular disease. HMTC’s rigorous lead testing applies ALARA principles to protect infants and consumers and to prepare brands for tightening regulations.

This review explains heavy metal toxicity mechanisms across arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, aluminum, and iron, highlighting oxidative stress, ionic mimicry, and metabolite-driven injury, with visuals linking exposure to neurodevelopmental and organ-specific harm and direct implications for ALARA-aligned certification limits.

This review documents elevated pediatric arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury exposures across emerging markets, links them to neurodevelopmental and birth-outcome harms, and identifies industrial and geogenic sources. Standardized biomonitoring and protective, child-focused limits are urgently needed for certification and public health.

This review reveals significant gaps in U.S. policy governing toxic heavy metals in baby food, highlighting widespread contamination, lack of binding standards, and underreporting due to flawed testing practices.