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Inorganic germanium and medical aspects
Inorganic germanium and organic germanium are different chemical compounds of germanium and their properties are different.
Germanium is not thought to be essential to the health of plants or animals.
[21] Germanium in the environment has little or no health impact. This is primarily because it usually occurs only as a trace element in ores and
carbonaceous materials, and is used in very small quantities that are not likely to be ingested, in its various industrial and electronic applications.
[24] For similar reasons, germanium in end-uses has little impact on the environment as a biohazard. Some reactive intermediate compounds of germanium are poisonous (see precautions, below).
[76]
Germanium supplements, made from both organic and inorganic germanium, have been marketed as an
alternative medicine capable of treating
leukemia and
lung cancer.
[21] There is however no
medical evidence of benefit, and instead some evidence that such supplements are actively harmful.
[77]
Other germanium compounds have been administered by alternative medical practitioners as non-FDA-allowed injectable solutions. Soluble inorganic forms of germanium used at first, notably the citrate-lactate salt, led to a number of cases of
renal dysfunction,
hepatic steatosis and peripheral
neuropathy in individuals using them on a chronic basis. Plasma and urine germanium concentrations in these individuals, several of whom died, were several orders of magnitude greater than
endogenous levels. A more recent organic form, beta-carboxyethylgermanium sesquioxide (
propagermanium), has not exhibited the same spectrum of toxic effects.
[78]
U.S. Food and Drug Administration research has concluded that inorganic germanium, when used as a
nutritional supplement, "presents potential human
health hazard".
[43]
