Rural areas of Punjab in India have been found to have soil rich in selenium (Se); about 2160 hectare area is seleniferous and is populated by about 10,000 inhabitants. Selenium concentrations in these villages were reported to be as high as 65 times over non-seleniferous areas. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate selenium levels in blood, hair and nails in a group of subjects living in this area, and to evaluate the correlation between selenium exposure levels and a relevant cardiovascular risk factor and blood pressure. 

Cadmium (Cd) is a human toxic and carcinogens which represents one of the prioritized substances included in the current European Human Biomonitoring (HMBI4EU). Chronic Cd exposure is generally lead to kidney and bone disease, but recent findings have point out such association between Cd exposure with cardio-cerebrovascular risk factors, including glucose intolerance, diabetes and atherosclerosis. Diet is the main source of exposure in non-smoking and non-occupationally exposed subjects. The Tolerable Weekly Intake (TWI) for this heavy metal of 2.5 μg/kg body weight (bw) has been recently set by the European Food and Safety Authority (EFSA) in order to guarantee a high protection to general population. In this study we are going to compare two different methods to estimate weekly intake of Cd.