Exposome:
Scientists are launching an ambitious global effort to map the “human exposome” — the lifelong mix of environmental and chemical exposures that drive most diseases.
- It can be defined as the measure of all the exposures of an individual in a lifetime, from conception onward and how those exposures relate to health.
- The International Human Exposome Network (IHEN) defines the exposome as the “integrated compilation of all physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial factors, and their interactions.”
- It reveals the accumulated lifetime exposures that determine our health, wellness, and susceptibility to disease.
- This is shaped by internal exposures such as individual metabolism or the microbiome, as well as external factors such as air quality.
- It also involves social or behavioral decisions that influence nutrition and exercise.
- Exposomics is the study of the exposome and relies on the application of internal and external exposure assessment methods
- Internal exposure assessment relies on fields of study such as genomics, metabonomics, lipidomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics.
- Commonalities of these fields include:
- use of biomarkers to determine exposure, effect of exposure, disease progression, and susceptibility factors
- use of technologies that result in large amounts of data and
- use of data mining techniques to find statistical associations between exposures, effect of exposures, and other factors such as genetics with disease.
- External exposure assessment relies on measuring environmental stressors.
- Common approaches include using direct reading instruments, laboratory-based analysis, and survey instruments.
