Onko bromilla hivenaineena jotain essentielliä biologista merkitystä?

Ei tiettävästi. Kuitenkin sitä esiintyy aivan tietyssä suhteessa plasman kloridiin 1: 1700. Bromium asettuu aivolisäkkeeseen lähinnä. Kts. tämä lähde hyper-hivenaineesta Bromium.

http://books.google.se/books?id=bP7BaltR9a8C&pg=PA144&lpg=PA144&dq=trace+elements+bromium&source=bl&ots=t3-IcDoa5u&sig=THYdW_qJ0_e3k4_rt2EYmV3NQTY&hl=sv&ei=eZ5gTrCLB4aMswa_iLD3DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&sqi=2&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=trace%20elements%20bromium&f=false

Kts kuitenkin tämä lähde:

http://www.mii.org/periodic/LifeElement.html

Kuitenkin on olemassa entsyymi haloperoksidaasi eosinofiilisissä valkosoluissa, ja se käyttää ensisijaisesti bromidia - eikä kloridia- kehkeyttäen hypobromiittia, joka on antiparasiittinen aine ja kuuluu täten luonnolliseen immuunipuolustukseen ihmiskunnassa- toimii mm monsoluisia nematoda parasiitteja (kuten filariasistautia) vastaan, myös tubibakteeria vastaan .Punalevää salaattiana käytetään Kreikassa, jossa tubi on vähenevä tauti, paitsi että Kreikan uusissa maahanmuuttajissa tubia on vielä runsaasti. Voi pohtia onko kreikkalaisella meriravinnolla osuutta kreikkalaisten omaan terveyteen.

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Bromine has no known essential role in human or mammalian health, but inorganic bromine and organobromine compounds do occur naturally, and some may be of use to higher organisms in dealing with parasites. For example, in the presence of H₂O₂ formed by the eosinophil, and either chloride or bromide ions, eosinophil peroxidase provides a potent mechanism by which eosinophils kill multicellular parasites (such as, for example, the nematode worms involved in filariasis); and also certain bacteria (such as tuberculosis bacteria). Eosinophil peroxidase is a haloperoxidase that preferentially uses bromide over chloride for this purpose, generating hypobromite (hypobromous acid).^[40]

Marine organisms are the main source of organobromine compounds. Over 1600 compounds were identified by 1999. The most abundant one is methyl bromide (CH₃Br) with an estimated 56,000 tonnes produced by marine algae each year.^[41] The essential oil of the Hawaiian alga Asparagopsis taxiformis consists of 80% methyl bromide.^[42] In fact, most organobromine compounds in nature arise in the sea, via the action of a unique algal enzyme, vanadium bromoperoxidase.^[43] Though this enzyme is the most prolific creator of organic bromides by living organisms, other bromoperoxidases exist in nature that do not use vanadium.

A famous example of a bromine-containing organic compound that has been used by humans since ancient times is the fabric dye Tyrian purple.^[22][41][44] The brominated indole indigo dye is produced by a medium-sized predatory sea snail, the marine gastropod Murex brandaris. The organobromine nature of the compound was not discovered until 1909 (see Paul Friedländer).^[45]

^Pesticide

Poisonous methyl bromide was widely used as pesticide to fumigate soil and to fumagate housing, by the tenting method. Ethylene bromide was similarly used.^[24] These volatile organobromine compounds are all now regulated as ozone depletion agents. The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone scheduled the phase out for the ozone depleting chemical by 2005, and organobromide pesticides are no longer used (in housing fumagation they have been replaced by such compounds as sulfuryl fluoride, which contain neither the chlorine or bromine organics which harm ozone). Prior to the Montreal protocol in 1991 (for example) an estimated 35,000 tonnes of the chemical were used to control nematodes, fungi, weeds and other soil-borne diseases.^[33][34]

[edit] Medical and veterinary

Potassium bromide

Main article: potassium bromide

Use. Bromide compounds, especially potassium bromide, were frequently used as general sedatives in the 19th and early 20th century. Bromides in the form of simple salts are still used as anticonvulsants in both veterinary and human medicine, although the latter use varies from country to country. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not approve bromide for the treatment of any disease, and it was removed from over-the-counter sedative products like Bromo-Seltzer, in 1975.^[35] Thus, bromide levels are not routinely measured by medical laboratories in the U.S. However, U.S. veterinary medical diagnostic testing laboratories will measure blood bromide levels on request, as an aid to treatment of epilepsy in dogs.

Toxicity. Long-term use of potassium bromide (or any bromide salt) can lead to bromism. This state of central nervous system depression causes the moderate toxicity of bromide in multi-gram doses for humans and other mammals. The very long half-life of bromide ion in the body (~12 days) also contributes to toxicity from bromide build-up in body fluids. Bromide ingestion may also cause a skin eruption resembling acne.

Bromine uses

• The bromides of calcium, sodium, and zinc account for a sizable part of the bromine market. These salts form dense solutions in water that are used as drilling fluids sometimes called clear brine fluids.^[24][36]
• Bromine is also used in the production of brominated vegetable oil, which is used as an emulsifier in many citrus-flavored soft drinks (for example, Mountain Dew). After the introduction in the 1940s the compound was extensively used until the UK and the US limited its use in the mid 1970s and alternative emulsifiers were developed.^[37]
  Soft drinks containing brominated vegetable oil are still sold in the US (2011).^[38]

Tralomethrin

• Several dyes, agrichemicals, and pharmaceuticals are organobromine compounds. 1-Bromo-3-chloropropane, 1-bromoethylbenzene, and 1-bromoalkanes are prepared by the antimarkovnikov addition of HBr to alkenes. Ethidium bromide, EtBr, is used as a DNA stain in gel electrophoresis.
• High refractive index compounds
• Bromine, like chlorine, is used in maintenance of swimming pools, especially spas (hot tubs), where it is generated in situ from a bromide plus hydrogen peroxide. In spas, the high water temperatures render chlorinated water purification and buffering compounds unstable, and bromine compounds may improve the life of the free-halogen antimicrobial.
• Water purification compounds, disinfectants and insecticides, such as tralomethrin (C₂₂H₁₉Br₄NO₃).^[24]
• Potassium bromide is used in some photographic developers to inhibit the formation of fog (undesired reduction of silver).
• Bromine vapor is used as the second step in sensitizing daguerreotype plates to be developed under mercury vapor. Bromine acts as an accelerator to the light sensitivity of the previously iodized plate.
• Bromine is also used to reduce mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants. This can be achieved either by treating activated carbon with bromine or by injecting bromine compounds onto the coal prior to combustion.
• Bromine can also be artificially substituted for the methyl substituent in the nitrogenous base thymine of DNA, creating the base analog 5-bromouracil. When this base is incorporated into DNA its different hydrogen bonding properties may cause mutation at the site of that base pair. The compound 5-bromouracil is thus an artificial mutagen.^[39]