What are the hazards of copper oxide to the human body

When it comes to the word "chemistry", everyone will probably think of it as a term that appears in junior high and high school textbooks. When we studied chemistry, we also learned about the impact of some chemical substances on people's lives, both good and bad. So how much do you know about copper oxide? In layman's terms, when the metal copper is exposed to air and oxidizes, it will form copper oxide. Copper oxide is most commonly seen in industry. So what harm does copper oxide do to the human body in daily life? Let’s find out together.

Copper is a trace element in the human body. Edible copper oxide reacts with gastric acid in the stomach to form CuCl2, which will be absorbed by the human body. Once Cu2+ enters the human blood and exceeds the standard, it will cause heavy metal poisoning, mainly causing protein denaturation in the body. However, another toxic manifestation of copper is damage to red blood cells, causing hemolysis and anemia. Usually, copper oxide accumulates mainly in the liver after entering the body. Once the processing level of the liver is exceeded, copper is released into the blood. Excessive Cu (II) combines with -SH and accumulates in large quantities in red blood cells, causing oxidative inactivation of the enzyme system, damaging red blood cells, increasing the permeability of cell membranes, destroying their stability, making the cytoplasm and organelles susceptible to damage, and increasing denatured hemoglobin. On the other hand, copper combines with hemoglobin to form Heinz bodies, inactivating intracellular glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and glutathione reductase, and reducing reduced glutathione, thereby aggravating the auto-oxidation of hemoglobin, causing a large amount of denatured hemoglobin to enter the blood, and ultimately leading to hemolysis and anemia.

Copper oxide is most commonly found in industrial processes. It turns out that copper oxide can also be seen in many places in our real life, such as copper tableware, copper jewelry, etc. Copper may be inadvertently exposed to the air for a long time and come into contact with human skin, and it will unknowingly enter the human body and combine with the blood. We need to pay more attention to the harm of copper oxide to the human body.