Interconnected environmental challenges: heavy metal-drug interactions and their impacts on ecosystems

Industrial expansion and inadequate environmental safety measures are major contributors to environmental contamination, with heavy metals (HMs) and pharmaceutical waste playing crucial roles. Their negative effects are most noticeable in aquatic species and vegetation, where they accumulate in tissues and cause harmful results. Interactions between HMs and pharmaceutical molecules result in the production of metal-drug complexes (MDCs), which have the potential to disturb diverse ecosystems and their interdependence. However, present studies frequently focus on individual pollutants and their effects on specific environmental parameters, leaving out the cumulative effects of pollutants and their processes across several environmental domains. To address this gap, this review emphasizes the environmental sources of HMs, elucidates their emission pathways during anthropogenic activities, investigates the interactions between HMs and pharmaceutical substances, and defines the mechanisms underlying the formation of MDCs across various ecosystems. Furthermore, this review underscores the simultaneous occurrence of HMs and pharmaceutical waste across diverse ecosystems, including the atmosphere, soil, and water resources, and their incorporation into biotic organisms across trophic levels. It is important to note that these complex compounds represent a higher risk than individual contaminants.