Zinc and Iron Supplementation Against Cadmium Toxicity in Rat

Environmental pollution is a global problem and is common to both developed as well as developing countries. It is caused by numerous chemicals, xenobiotics, heavy metals etc. Heavy metal pollution is ever increasing day by day throughout the world. The natural environments are extensively contaminated with heavy metals released from domestic, industrial and other anthropogenic activities. Heavy metals have the ability to accumulate in the tissues of living organisms and biotransforms from producers to consumers in a food web ultimately affecting the human beings. The present investigation is a small foray into the broad area of toxicology. A small step towards this, the present work was carried out to study the heavy metal cadmium (Cd) induced bioaccumulation, levels of lipid peroxidation, activity levels of enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants and also purification and quantification of low molecular weight (6-7 KDa), cysteine rich, metal binding protein, metallothionein (MT) in liver and kidney tissues of Wistar strain male albino rats with reference to the essential trace elements (zinc and / or iron) supplementation against Cd induced toxicity.