This review describes the current understanding and the mechanisms involved by different forms of mercury in eliciting their toxicity in kidney along with the knowledge of major intracellular reductant that plays important role in the mitigation of mercury toxicity for the maintenance of homeostasis within the body of living organisms. Mercury toxicity has the ability to produce a variety of deleterious health effects, ranging from single to multiple target effects inside the body of living organisms.

Heavy metals are known to induce functional alterations in kidney mitochondria, this damage plays a central role in the mercury-induced acute renal failure. In fact, mercury causes rapid and dramatic changes in the membrane's ionic permeability in such a way that a supra load of mitochondrial Ca(2+) occurs. As a consequence, the phenomenon of permeability transition takes place.

Curcumin treatment was found to have a protective effect on mercury-induced oxidative stress parameters, namely, lipid peroxidation and glutathione levels and superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase and catalase activities in the liver, kidney and brain. Curcumin treatment was also effective for reversing mercury-induced serum biochemical changes, which are the markers of liver and kidney injury.

From The National Kidney Foundation: according to investigators at Johns Hopkins and Tufts-New England Medical Center, a study based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey estimated that there are 26,000,000 adults with evidence of kidney disease in the USA alone and most are completely unaware of their condition. This number increases  the rate of chronic kidney disease by 30%. From 10% of the U.S. population (1988-1994) to 13.1% (1999-2004).”

A study published in the Journal of Occupational Medicine  in 2010 revealed that The kidney retains more mercury than any other organ in the body and Estimation of urinary mercury concentration is of limited value in the diagnosis of mercurialism, as high excretion rates may be seen without clinical disorder, or mercurialism may be present when urinary excretion is low.

Mercury, we now know, concentrates in the kidneys, and experimental evidence shows that it can inhibit kidney function. In one experiment, the organ that accumulated the greatest amount of mercury following amalgam placement was the kidneys.