Scientists are launching an ambitious global effort to map the “human exposome” — the lifelong mix of environmental and chemical exposures that drive most diseases.
About Exposome:
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 exposureassessment 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.
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