Applications of lactic acid bacteria in heavy metal pollution environment

Abstract

Heavy metals are kinds of metallic elements whose density is beyond 5 g/cm3. Some heavy metals are essential trace elements, for example, iron, copper, and zinc, whereas others have no beneficial physiological function and may be toxic even in a very little amount. It is well known that cadmium, lead, mercury, and arsenic are the most toxic heavy metals. It is unavoidable that human beings are exposed to heavy metal in daily life. The range of adverse health effects induced by heavy metal exposure in humans and animals is broad. The common therapy used to deal with heavy metal intoxication is to promote the excretion by chelating. However, chelators themselves may have a lot of different safety and efficacy issues. Therefore, developing safe and effective methods against heavy metal toxicity is a necessary research field. Dietary strategies have advantages since they are easy and affordable to be added into the daily diet as the nutritional ingredients, including essential metal, vitamin, dietary phytochemical supplementation, and probiotics, and overcome the side effects of the chelation therapy.