Obesity-Dependent Accumulation of Titanium in the Pancreas of Type 2 Diabetic Donors.

The most widely used white pigment of foods and medications is crystalline, anatase-phase TiO2 of 110 ± 70 nm particle diameter. Recent studies by other investigators have shown that depending on its ingested pigment amount the concentration of titanium in human blood ranges between 2 and 48 ppb and that Ti accumulates in the spleen and in the liver. Here we report titanium concentrations in the pancreas head of 30 human donors, measured by inductively coupled plasma quadrupole mass spectroscopy. Of the donors, 7 were free of pancreatic disease, 4 had pancreatitis, 10 had type 2 diabetes and 9 had type 2 diabetes with pancreatitis; 3 were underweight, 6 were normal weight, 5 were overweight, and 16 were obese. Ti accumulated in the pancreas, its accumulation increasing with obesity. The pancreatic Ti concentrations ranged from 0.75 to 3.78 ppm, averaging 1.8 ppm, much higher than the reported 40-100 ppb concentration in the spleen or the 30-100 ppb concentration reported in the liver. The corresponding number density of 110 nm diameter TiO2 particles averaged 3.6 × 109 per gram of wet tissue; their potentially biological macromolecule adsorbing surface area is ∼1 cm2 per gram wet tissue.