Health and Environmental Risks Associated with Exposure to Heavy Metals Emitted by Military Operations

During military operations, residual metals and weapons residue, including lead, copper, depleted uranium (DU), zinc, nickel, chromium, cadmium, etc., are released into the environment. These activities can result in human exposure to metal by inhalation or ingestion of released particles, as well as injury from embedded fragments. This study was conducted to investigate potential sources of metal emissions during military operations, pathways of metal exposure, and associated health risks.

This study is a review study conducted in the spring of 2023 by searching the PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases and searching using the Google Scholar search engine using the keywords "Health effects", "health", "Metal", "Embedded Pieces", "Weapon" "Military" and related articles were selected and reviewed.

Residues of war weapons can directly cause exposure and contamination of plants, animals, and humans with metals through soil, air, underground, and surface water. Biomonitoring studies have shown an increase in the accumulation of these metals in plants, vertebrates and invertebrates. Exposure to these metals leads to adverse cardiovascular, neurological, etc. consequences in military personnel and negative consequences for the development of the nervous system in children living in military areas. Also, experimental studies in vivo and in vitro have shown the toxic effects of specific metals as well as widely used metal alloys.

Evidence shows that exposure to metals during military activities can be associated with metal toxicity and contribute significantly to adverse health effects. An increased metal load in the body may lead to latent and long-term effects in exposed people. The major effects of toxicity depend on various factors such as the type of weapon, chemical composition, routes of exposure, and environmental characteristics, which are currently poorly understood. Therefore, further studies in biological, epidemiological, and laboratory surveillance are needed to better characterize metal exposure associated with military operations.