Human Experiments

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Evidently we cannot test the hypothesis by exposing human beings for hydrocarbons. But an unintentional "experiment" was performed some years ago i Spain. Adulterated cooking oil that contained aniline, oleoanilides and azobenzene, was sold for human consumption. 842 patients were admitted to hospital with severe symptoms of intoxication. Four of them had glomerulonephritis with renal failure. As this number is at least 150 times higher than the normal incidence of end-stage glomerulonephritis during a whole year there can be no doubt that the glomerulonephritis was caused by the chemicals (Navas-Palacios et al 1984).

Instead of exposing healthy individuals we can ask exposed patients to discontinue the exposure and see what happens. Only one such study has been published. In that study fifteen of thirty exposed patients discontinued the exposure. Initially the renal function in these patients was lower and the blood pressure higher compared with the fifteen patients who did not succeed in discontinuing the exposure. In spite of that the course of the disease was more favourable (Ravnskov 1986), just as in the follow-up studies by Bell et al 1985 and  Yaqoob et al 1993b mentioned in the section The Cohort Studies, and with the findings in the Case-Control Studies. 

Evidently, the most important influence of hydrocarbon exposure in glomerulonephritis is its effect on renal function. Exposure is prevalent in patients with renal failure and renal function may improve when the exposure is discontinued. 

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