Chronic disease prevention, asbestos exposure in diamond miners

Our plain-English summary of Chronic disease prevention, asbestos exposure in diamond miners, by P. Noone (Occupational Medicine, 2012).

The study

• Author: P. Noone
• Journal: Occupational Medicine
• Published: 2012;62(1):76
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This item was not a research study. It was a short "Monitor" column by the author in Occupational Medicine that briefly described other published work. Most of the column covered tuberculosis and diabetes, and a Norwegian study of exercise, body weight and chronic back and neck/shoulder pain. Its final paragraph dealt with asbestos. The column explained that diamonds are found in kimberlite, an ultramafic rock in which amphibole minerals also occur. It said ultramafic rocks often contain asbestos and that many diamond mines are close to asbestos deposits. It then described a 2011 study by Nelson, Murray and Phillips of South African diamond mine workers. According to the column, that study showed these workers were at risk of asbestos exposure, and so of asbestos-related diseases, because asbestos may be mined by accident along with other minerals. The asbestos paragraph gave no figures for exposure or disease risk and did not name a specific asbestos fiber type. The author concluded that even low concentrations of asbestos can potentially cause disease and that mining companies should be aware of this risk.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Commentary column (journal 'Monitor' digest) summarizing other published studies; no original data
• Who was studied: No population was studied by this article. The asbestos paragraph describes a separate 2011 study of South African diamond mine workers by Nelson, Murray and Phillips (Annals of Occupational Hygiene).
• Exposure: Asbestos that may be mined accidentally in diamond mining. Diamonds occur in kimberlite, an ultramafic rock that contains amphibole minerals. Ultramafic rocks often contain asbestos. No specific asbestos fiber type or dose is given.
• Main results:
  • The column reports, citing Nelson, Murray and Phillips (2011), that a recent study showed diamond mine workers were at risk of asbestos exposure and therefore of developing asbestos-related diseases. This is that study's finding as described here, not a finding of this article.
  • The column states that diamonds are found in kimberlite, an ultramafic rock in which amphibole minerals also occur.
  • The column states that many diamond mines are close to asbestos deposits that have either been mined or were not commercially viable.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that even at low concentrations asbestos has the potential to cause disease, and that mining companies should be aware of the health risk of accidentally mining it.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Asbestos Exposure.

Related studies

• Chronic pleuritic pain in four patients with asbestos induced pleural fibrosis — A. Miller (1990)
• Pleurectomy for persistent pain in benign asbestos-related pleural disease — D.I. Fielding, J.L. McKeon, et al. (1995)
• A survey of acute and chronic disease associated with Yersinia enterocolitica infection. A Norwegian 10-year follow-up study on 458 hospitalized patients — A. Saebø, J. Lassen (1991)
• A new trajectory approach for investigating the association between an environmental or occupational exposure over lifetime and the risk of chronic disease: Application to smoking, asbestos, and lung cancer — E. Lévêque, A. Lacourt, et al. (2020)
• Tuberculosis and risk of cancer: a Danish nationwide cohort study — D.F. Simonsen, D.K. Farkas, et al. (2014)
• Chronic periaortitis: a spectrum of diseases — A. Vaglio, C. Buzio (2005)

Browse more research in Occupational Medicine, or return to medical research.