Stanford scientists have measured the human “exposome,” or the particulates, chemicals and microbes that individually swaddle us all, in unprecedented detail
2018 Study Highlights
- Human exposome, including biotic/abiotic exposures, is vast, diverse, and dynamic
- Human exposome is influenced by environmental and spatial/lifestyle variables
- People can have distinct personalized exposomes, even when geographically close
- Human- and environment-related exposures constitute the human exposome cloud
2018 Paper Abstract
Human health is dependent upon environmental exposures, yet the diversity and variation in exposures are poorly understood.
We developed a sensitive method to monitor personal airborne biological and chemical exposures and followed the personal exposomes of 15 individuals for up to 890 days and over 66 distinct geographical locations.
We found that individuals are potentially exposed to thousands of pan-domain species and chemical compounds, including insecticides and carcinogens. Personal biological and chemical exposomes are highly dynamic and vary spatiotemporally, even for individuals located in the same general geographical region. Integrated analysis of biological and chemical exposomes revealed strong location-dependent relationships. Finally, construction of an exposome interaction network demonstrated the presence of distinct yet interconnected human- and environment-centric clouds, comprised of interacting ecosystems such as human, flora, pets, and arthropods.
Overall, we demonstrate that human exposomes are diverse, dynamic, spatiotemporally-driven interaction networks with the potential to impact human health..
More Information
- We are bombarded by thousands of diverse species and chemicals, ncbi, stanford.edu.
- Dynamic Human Environmental Exposome Revealed by Longitudinal Personal Monitoring, cell.
- Featured image literatumonline.