The European Human Exposome Network (EHEN) Scientific Meeting took place from May 30th to June 1st in Leuven, Belgium. The focus of the third day of the meeting was “Exposome Research: Understanding and Addressing Policy Challenges.”
The 2023 Exposome Day webinar topic of discussion was “Women’s Health over 40: Menopause and Environmental Exposures.” The webinar was moderated by Dr. Sarah Evans, Assistant Professor at Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Dr. Sarah welcomed the speakers and audience attending Exposome Day 2023. She explained that “the webinar speakers are leading environmental health and exposomic scientists. They will discuss what is known and the research gaps regarding environmental exposures—from chemicals, nutrition, air pollution, and non-chemical exposures such as stress. They will also focus on the transition to menopause and what women can do to reduce harmful exposures.”
Every day an American is potentially exposed to more than 80,000 toxic chemicals, yet their impact on neuro-diseases is not well understood.
Studies have shown that exposure to toxic chemicals in the early stages of life could have permanent consequences for neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration in later life. With advanced research in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, it is now clear that genetic risk factors cannot fully explain them.
The exposome: the cumulative measure of environmental exposures and corresponding biological responses that can be derived from biological samples (blood, urine, tissue).
The debate of nature versus nurture was put to rest by introducing the exposome concept [3], the definition of which considers environmental factors (nurture) and the associated biological responses (nature).
