Analysis of soil nutrients and their simultaneous effect to human health in terms of toxicity: A pilot study

Soil contains a wide variety of mixtures including organic matters, minerals, nutrients required by plants. These nutrients are directly or indirectly related to human health. Soil is an important source of nutrients in our food supply. These types of imbalances in nutrients can cause negative effects on health. Soil provides many of the nutrients we require and can pass on harmful substances through the intake of food. Supply of any element may result in human toxicity even though the elements are essential for life. For any essential element there is an optimal range of concentration in humans, falling below this optimal range results in deficiency, whereas concentrations above the optimal range create toxicity. Soil mostly found near the industrial areas is dangerously contaminated with minerals like Sulphur, Boron, and Phosphorus etc. Also uncontrolled use of high quantity of fertilizers without having awareness and knowledge of their negative effects would also lead to toxicity. So, production of fruits, vegetables and crops on such contaminated soils prove to be dangerous to human health. Soil samples from twenty different areas (industrial as well as non-industrial areas) where native people grow plants for production of food were targeted, analysis of which have resulted in the extraction and detection of high levels of minerals. Chronic consumption of food from plants grown in such contaminated soils is one of the important and main reasons for negative health effects leading to toxicity and eventually increases the chance of mortality rates in humans.