REN R360 Lecture Notes - Biomonitoring, Public Health
4 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
Petroleum and other materials are transformed by industrial processes into fuels, plastic, pesticides, cosmetics, food additives and pharmaceuticals. Residues of human made substance can now be found in the air, soil, water and food web in the most remote reaches of the plant. Pollutants that are distributed ubiquitously result in universal human exposure through inhalation, drinking water, and the food supply. Some of the substances to which the general human population is exposed resist metabolism and excretion and therefore accumulate in body tissues. The quantity of an exogenous substance or its metabolites that has accumulated in an individual or population is defined as a body burden. Individual"s body burden of a pollutant is estimated by measuring the concentration of that substance in one or more tissues, usually by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Chemical body burdens are complex and dynamic in a number of ways, and these characteristics make a full characterization of the general public body burden exceedingly difficulty.
