SUMMARY

Medical geology: The theoretical basis, main task, content and study methodology

Võ Công Nghiệp, Đỗ Văn Ái, Trần Tân Văn, Quách Đức Tín

The medical geology is an emerging interdisciplinary geoscience that is established recently based on the combination of geology and medicine in order to study the relation between geological environment and human being and animal health on both sides: negative and positive, then applying measurements to minimize the negative effects and employing positive effects to prevent and cure deseases, stress etc. The main task of medical geology is to study on:

1. The distribution, geochemical behaviour, biological effects of major, trace and toxic elements in geological environment;

2. Doses, biogeochemical thresholds of elements and their effect on organisms;

3. The synergistic and antagonistic interaction between elements in the environment, which affects living bodies;

4. The exposure pathways, exposure points and bioavailability of elements on living bodies;

5. The geoecological anomalies, geopathogenic zones and endemic diseases caused by geological environment;

6. The contamination of geological environment caused by human activities and its effects on living bodies;

7. The body’s reaction to the impact of the geological environment;

8. The usage of geological resources for disease treatment and public health care.

As a scientific discipline serving directly the public health and bioenvironmental protection, the medical geology attracts the interests of world wide scientists. On the global scale, a big scientific-professional organization named “INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL GEOLOGY ASSOCIATION - IMGA” started officially on January 24^th, 2006 and is carried out initial activities to link, support, promote the investigation on medical geology in member countries creating the basis for development of this young scientific field world wide in the near future.

Ngày nhận bài: 10/10/2008

Người biên tập: Nguyễn Xuân Khiển