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A new study has proved that carbon naotubes used in sports equipment to medical applications can be harmful for the lungs’ lining.
The long term effects, however, remain unclear.
The study which was conducted by b North Carolina State University, Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences used mice for determining the results of inhaling multi-walled carbon nanotubes.
The researchers wanted to know if these had the potential for reaching pleura which is normally the affected part of lungs due to cancer causing asbestos fibres. They found out that these nanotubes reached pleura and triggered issues for lungs. But this has proved to be for a short time only.
The "unique reaction" began within one day of inhalation of the nanotubes, when clusters of immune cells (lymphocytes and monocytes) began collecting on the surface of the pleura.
Localised fibrosis, or scarring on parts of the pleural surface that is also found with asbestos exposure, began two weeks after inhalation.
Even though the study showcased immune response with fibrosis vanishing after 3 months, the major drawback of the study is that it was used only single exposure of nanotubes.
It remains unclear whether the pleura could recover from chronic, or repeated, exposures.
"More work needs to be done in that area and it is completely unknown at this point whether inhaled carbon nanotubes will prove to be carcinogenic in the lungs or in the pleural lining," an NCSU release said.
These findings were published in Nature Nanotechnology.
