Period 5 element dimethyl telluride, (CH)Te, a gas with a garlic-like odor which is exhaled in the breath of victims of tellurium toxicity or exposure. Iodine is the heaviest essential element utilized widely by life in biological functions (only tungsten, employed in enzymes by a few species of bacteria, is heavier). Iodine's rarity in many soils, due to initial low abundance as a crust-element, and also leaching of soluble iodide by rainwater, has led to many deficiency problems in land animals and inland human populations. Iodine deficiency affects about two billion people and is the leading preventable cause of intellectual disabilities. Iodine is
Copper deficiency neurological symptoms such as unsteady gait and mild ataxia. Menkes disease is a congenital disease that is a cause of copper deficiency. Menkes disease is a hereditary condition caused by a defective gene involved with the metabolism of copper in the body. Menkes disease involves a wide variety of symptoms including floppy muscle tone, seizures, abnormally low temperatures, and a peculiar steel color hair that feels very rough. Menkes disease is usually a fatal disease with most children dying within the first ten years of life. It is rarely suggested that excess iron supplementation causes copper deficiency myelopathy. Another rarer