The exposome concept: a challenge and a potential driver for environmental health research

Abstract

Correspondence: Valérie Siroux, Institut Albert Boniot, Inserm/Université Grenoble Alpes U1209, Equipe d'épidémiologie environnementale appliquée à la reproduction et à la santé respiratoire, Rond point de la chantourne, 38706 La Tronche, France. E-mail: valerie.siroux@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr ABSTRACT The exposome concept was defined in 2005 as encompassing all environmental exposures from conception onwards, as a new strategy to evidence environmental disease risk factors. Although very appealing, the exposome concept is challenging in many respects. In terms of assessment, several hundreds of time-varying exposures need to be considered, but increasing the number of exposures assessed should not be done at the cost of increased exposure misclassification. Accurately assessing the exposome currently requires numerous measurements, which rely on different technologies; resulting in an expensive set of protocols. In the future, high-throughput 'omics technologies may be a promising technique to integrate a wide range of exposures from a small numbers of biological matrices. Assessing the association between many exposures and health raises statistical challenges. Due to the correlation structure of the exposome, existing statistical methods cannot fully and efficiently untangle the exposures truly affecting the health outcome from correlated exposures. Other statistical challenges relate to accounting for exposure misclassification or identifying synergistic effects between exposures. On-going exposome projects are trying to overcome technical and statistical challenges. From a public health perspective, a better understanding of the environmental risk factors should open the way to improved prevention strategies. @ERSpublications The exposome concept presents challenges in terms of measurement and assessment of exposomehealth relationships

Environmental pollutants, a possible etiology for premature ovarian insufficiency: a narrative review of animal and human data

“…Secondly, human beings are subject to a complex multi-exposure to different environmental pollutants that vary over time and space making it difficult to predict the effects of one specific substance on human health [75]. This is the exposome concept [117]. Depending on these combinations, there can be a cumulative, an antagonistic or a synergy of effects that decreases the ability to detect a significant association between an exposure and the effect on POI [27].…”

Trends in the application of high-resolution mass spectrometry for human biomonitoring: An analytical primer to studying the environmental chemical space of the human exposome

“…The review also draws parallels between the applications of HRMS used in forensic toxicology (Ojanpera et al, 2012, Ibáñez et al, 2014), water quality monitoring (Hernández et al, 2014, Leendert et al, 2015, Gosetti et al, 2016), food safety (Hernández et al, 2011a), and environmental (Petrovic and Barcelo, 2006) and clinical sciences (Yin and Xu, 2014). Suggested additional reading material are the notable review articles on HRMS applications in the ‘omics’ era in general (Madji Hounoum et al, 2016, Ghaste et al, 2016) (Rathahao-Paris et al, 2016) (Schrimpe-Rutledge et al, 2016) and the exposome in particular (Jones, 2016, Athersuch, 2015, Athersuch, 2012, Athersuch and Keun, 2015, Siroux et al, 2016). A large number of reviews on HRMS strategies are found in the literature but none adequately represent studies on characterizing the environmental chemical space in human matrices.…”

ERS Lung Science Conference 2016 report

“…The exposome approach is complex, both in term of comprehensively measuring it (hundreds of exposures need to be considered) over the life course and of analysing its relation to health. Despite this, it is likely that a better understanding of environmental factors will lead to improved prevention strategies in asthma [16]. Jørgen Vestbo (Centre for Respiratory Medicine and Allergy, The University of Manchester and University Hospital South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK) described three different epidemiological approaches to address scientific questions that cannot be tested in a laboratory, clinical or clinical trial setting.…”

“…Using a prospective cohort study design and merging data from three cohorts to study the trajectories of lung function decline over 25 years, it was possible to document that maximally attained lung function in early adulthood (small lungs) is probably as important as excess decline in forced expiratory volume in 1 s for the development of COPD. In addition, the beneficial effect of statins on COPD exacerbations was observed using a large nested case-control design [16]. Further details of these approaches are given in accompanying articles in this issue of the ERR [16,17].…”

“…In addition, the beneficial effect of statins on COPD exacerbations was observed using a large nested case-control design [16]. Further details of these approaches are given in accompanying articles in this issue of the ERR [16,17].…”