Dr. Patrick Parsons, Director of the Division of Environmental Health Sciences and Chief of the Laboratory of Inorganic and Nuclear Chemistry at the Wadsworth Center, presented an invited seminar to the Department of Chemistry at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) on October 23. His talk, titled “Long-Term Parenteral Nutrition and Exposure to Essential and Non-Essential Trace Elements: A Post-Mortem Study,” highlighted recent collaborative research conducted with clinicians at Albany Medical Center.
Dr. Parsons discussed findings from a study of patients who had received long-term parenteral nutrition (PN), which can lead to chronic exposure and accumulation of toxic metals in the skeletal system. Post-mortem bone samples collected from seven PN patients (2–21 years of treatment) were analyzed at the Wadsworth Center for aluminum and other trace elements. During these analyses, the rare earth element (REE) yttrium was unexpectedly detected, prompting a broader investigation of REEs.
Results revealed markedly elevated aluminum concentrations in nearly all patients, alongside significant mineral imbalances — including depletion of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and strontium, and enrichment of zinc and uranium. Median REE concentrations in PN patients were more than fifteen times higher than those in control samples and exceeded all previously published human bone data for eleven REEs.
This research, now published in several peer-reviewed journals, provides new insights into trace metal exposure and accumulation associated with long-term medical nutrition therapy and underscores the Wadsworth Center’s leadership in advancing environmental and biomedical trace element research.