Asbestos is a hazardous natural mineral that can cause a variety of health problems when the tiny fibres are breathed in. The greater or more prolonged the exposure to asbestos, the greater your chances might be of developing an asbestos-related illness like asbestosis, mesothelioma, cancer, and pleural plaques.

We know that we must take all possible precautions to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our community from asbestos, but what many of us don’t know is what actually happens when you do inhale asbestos and get sick. What happens to the asbestos particles when they are in human lung cells? And what do they do to those human lung cells?

 

What Does Asbestos Do To Your Lung Cells?

Knowing that asbestos may cause cancer can be reason enough to take all reasonable precautions when dealing with it. You might hire a reputable asbestos removal company to take care of it for you or purchase all the appropriate PPE when managing non-friable asbestos under 10m2 in size.

However, when you take these necessary measures, it’s helpful to know why you’re doing it. When you learn what happens to your lungs after coming into contact with asbestos fibres, you may be convinced that these measures are necessary.

 

Asbestos Launches Its Bodily Attack

The more asbestos fibres you inhale, the worse off you may be. The fibres can accumulate in your lung tissue, which your immune system knows is a foreign invader. It responds by sending white blood cells called macrophages to surround the fibres and break them down.

All those cells want to do is remove the asbestos from the body, and while they might have success with some fibres, they can’t get rid of them all. The ones that remain behind cause inflammation, resulting in conditions like asbestosis.

How Does Asbestosis Happen?

Asbestosis is an interstitial lung disease that causes your lungs to become scarred and inflamed. The asbestos fibres you inhale can cause scar tissue called pulmonary fibrosis to form inside your lungs.

The scarring in your lungs resulting from the asbestos causes the lung tissue to stiffen. This stiffening often results in a variety of uncomfortable symptoms, such as crackling sounds, general discomfort, and coughing.

As you may also have less oxygen delivered to your blood, you may feel shortness of breath, a lack of energy, fatigue, weight loss, and chronic breathing problems. When symptoms advance, clubbed fingers and toes and pulmonary hypertension can occur, further worsening your situation.

 

What Happens to Asbestos In Your Lung Cells to Cause Cancer?

Going from inflammation to cancer is a big step, so what actually happens for asbestos to cause disease? To be frank, researchers still don’t know everything, but what they are slowly discovering is truly quite incredible.

Rather than looking at how asbestos causes disease in the same way we’ve been doing for years, biomedical researchers decided to flip their approach on its head. University of Pennsylvania researchers chose to focus on how the interactions between our cells and asbestos change asbestos itself once it’s inside the cell.

According to Department of Earth and Environmental Science professor Reto Gieré, they used cutting-edge experimental techniques to watch the asbestos transform. With nanoscale and atomic-scale viewing technologies, they watched as the asbestos minerals appeared to be changing in a way that looked like they were defending themselves from the cells.

How Does this Approach Differ From Others?

Our current research looks into asbestos toxicity and how the tissues in our bodies respond to it. We also look at the impact on the body when asbestos fibres stay inside tissue outside of cells.

However, this innovative approach utilizes high-spatial-resolution in imaging technology to watch asbestos minerals after two days inside human lung cells.

Study Observations

With this approach, the research team reported changes that had never been seen before in the amphibole asbestos minerals.

Many of the mineral fibres appeared to be taken up by cell compartments called lysosomes. These compartments process cellular waste and programmed cell death. The lysosome is more acidic than the rest of the cell, so researchers observed that the asbestos mineral’s surface actually began to dissolve in that acidity.

They also formed an iron-rich amorphous layer once internalised by the cells, which is different than the asbestos bodies formed in the lung tissue by macrophages, which is common with extended asbestos exposure as previously stated.

The interesting difference in the layer makes scientists believe that the lung cell may be attempting to protect itself by triggering the change in the mineral. However, the science still has a long way to go before we learn everything there is to know about how the human body deals with asbestos fibres.

Where to From Here?

We are always learning new things about asbestos, but our situation remains the same. Asbestos is still harmful to our health, and we may still get sick from breathing it in. That’s why when the time comes to undertake asbestos removal, all practical measures should be taken to reduce the health risks.