Layard and Stanton hypothesized in 1977/78 that chemical effects linked to cancer (mesothelioma)
are not initiated by
the toxicity of fibrous materials,
that's any trigger-effects of asbestos must presumably be
physical. They presume:
(A) Mechanical Damage. There is experimental evidence that very slim fibers (<60 nm, <0.06 μm in width) do tangle destructively with chromosomes (being comparably sized ). It is quite clear that it's likely to cause the sort of mitosis disruption expected in cancer (mesothelioma)
.
(B) Unwanted Signal Channels. This presume has recently been explored theoretically, but unfortunately not yet experimentally. The theory claims that this effect would only be feasible for asbestos fibers >100 nm in width ( or >150 nm in the chrysotile case), suggesting that we should be on the look-out for a possible mixture of different mechanisms for the various fiber-diameter-ranges.
One popular idea of the causal chain is
(1) Asbestos fiber → → (3) inflammation → → (4) other pathology
Although this may be true, it does't explain → → (2) the actual trigger.
- "What is the physical characteristic of asbestos which initiates such an inflammation?"
- After all, inflammation is commonly seen as caused by chemical-based processes: immunological and/or bacterial. So inflammation may well be part of the causal chain, but not a crucial first step.
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