Extracellular mineral grains in cardiovascular tissues, methods for their detection and diagnostics

The tissue mineralization is a kind of mineralization in the human organism, of which the bone tissue physiogenic mineralization is an example. Tissue mineralization occurs in the close contact of a mineral with body cells, extracellular tissue media and, in case of pathogenic mineralization, with cell destruction products. Until recently, physical and electron microscope methods have most intensively been applied for investigating such widely occurring pathological tissue mineralization as calcification (=calcinosis). This term is commonly accepted for the carbonate-bearing hydroxylapatite deposit in tissues. Since 1990s, along with calcification, the investigation has also been concerned with the physiogenic magnetite mineralization in the human brain and pathogenic mineralization in different neural and age diseases: Alzheimer's sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and others. The present work is intended to investigate comprehensively pathogenic mineralization in the cardiovascular system. Calcified and non-calcified cardiovascular tissues have been analysed. Various physical and physico-chemical techniques, along with mineralogical methods originally applied to human tissues, have been used for detecting minerals new for the human organism. The mineragraphic approach manifested itself as quite effective and simple in analysing the desiccated tissues. The variable-valence metal oxides and sulphides, along with silicon oxide, have been considered as the most significant revealed minerals in their conceivable impact on the human organism. The mineral deposit in tissues is supposed to be caused by the decay of the metal-binding proteins and/or the dissociation of the lipid-metal complexes. The most probable source of titanium minerals is iatrogenic, and silicon may be both of endogenous and iatrogenic origin. A new hypothesis has been proposed on the physical nature of biological effects of the low-frequency magnetic fields.

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