Carbon monoxide: the elusive environmental toxicant.

The pivotal role of carbon monoxide (CO) in understanding the pathology of diseases is long overdue. The significance of this odourless, inert gas was trivialised throughout the years in advancement of corporate interest, with over-riding emphasis on economic gains. Thus, under the auspices of advancement of socioeconomic interest, the role of carbon monoxide, an extremely dangerous biproduct of incomplete combustion of any hydrocarbon, was inevitably obscured by the lure of profitability. Although odourless and inert, CO is a potent chemical asphyxiant whose primary toxic action is through hypoxia. It is on the basis of its prolonged effects at cellular level, by alteration to redox state of each and every single living cell, that, the author argues, it contributes to the ever-increasing levels of neurodegenerative, autoimmune, maladaptive, behavioural syndromes known to be especially prevalent within industrialised western societies. Copyright 2001 Harcourt Publishers Ltd.