Environmental Health and Toxicology

Oxidative stress was evaluated for anthracene (Ant) and alkyl-Ants (9-methylanthracene [9-MA] and 9,10-dimethylanthracene [9,10-DMA]) in Caenorhabditis elegans to compare changes in toxicity due to the degree of alkylation. Worms were exposed at 1) the same external exposure concentration and 2) the maximum water-soluble concentration. Formation of reactive oxygen species, superoxide dismutase activity, total glutathione concentration, and lipid peroxidation were determined under constant exposure conditions using passive dosing...

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Several epidemiological studies have reported an association between environmental pollution and various health conditions in individuals residing in industrial complexes. To evaluate the effects of pollution from industrial complex on human health, we performed a pooled analysis of environmental epidemiologic monitoring data for residents living near national industrial complexes in Korea. The respiratory and allergic symptoms and the prevalence of acute and chronic diseases, including cancer, were used as the outcome variables for health effects...

Radon, the primary constituent of natural radiation, is the second leading environmental cause of lung cancer after smoking. To confirm a relationship between indoor radon exposure and lung cancer, estimating cumulative levels of exposure to indoor radon for an individual or population is necessary. This study sought to develop a model for estimate indoor radon concentrations in Korea. Especially, our model and method may have wider application to other residences, not to specific site, and can be used in situations where actual measurements for input variables are lacking...

Amid revolutionary changes in toxicity assessment brought about by increasing regulation of chemicals, adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) have emerged as a useful framework to assess adverse effect of chemicals using molecular level effect, which aid in setting environmental regulation policies. AOPs are biological maps that describe mechanisms linking molecular initiating event to adverse outcomes (AOs) at an individual level. Each AOP consists of a molecular initiating event, key events, and an AO. AOPs use molecular markers to predict endpoints currently used in risk assessment, promote alternatives to animal model-based test methods, and provide scientific explanations for the effects of chemical exposures...

The purpose of this study is to introduce the establishment process, policy target, and projects for "Chungnam's master plan on environmental health policy (2017-2020)" as the local government's role in addressing local environmental health challenges. We first analyzed existing studies and social issues on the media related to "Chungnam's master plan" to understand Chungnam's environmental health status and discussed domestic and international policy trends and related plans. An environmental health perception questionnaire survey and a Delphi expert questionnaire survey were conducted among provincial residents to collect various actors' opinions on Chungnam's environmental health issues and policy...

The role of infectious agents in the etiology of inflammatory diseases once believed to be non-infectious is increasingly being recognized. Many bacterial components in the indoor dust can evoke inflammatory lung diseases. Bacteria secrete nanometer-sized vesicles into the extracellular milieu, so-called extracellular vesicles (EV). which are pathophysiologically related to inflammatory diseases. Microbiota compositions in the indoor dust revealed the presence of both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria...

This study utilized the Community Multiscale Air Quality model to simulate the spatial distribution of benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX) concentrations from large national industrial complexes (IC) located in the Ulsan metropolitan region (UMR). Through controlling pollutant emissions from major IC, this study performed a quantitative analysis of the influence of pollutant emissions on BTX concentrations in surrounding urban areas. The results showed that approximately 40% of the annual average BTX concentrations in nearby urban grids were directly influenced by pollutant emissions from the IC...

In this economic evaluation of environmental epidemiological monitoring projects, we analyzed the economic feasibility of these projects by determining the social cost and benefit of these projects and conducting a cost/benefit analysis. Here, the social cost was evaluated by converting annual budgets for these research and survey projects into present values. Meanwhile, the societal benefit of these projects was evaluated by using the contingent valuation method to estimate the willingness-to-pay of residents living in or near industrial complexes...

The objective of this study was to verify a change in the longitudinal trend of blood lead levels for the Korean population, before and after the regulation of leaded gasoline- which occurred between 1987 and 1993 in Korea. A total of 77 reports on blood lead levels among general Korean population between 1981 and 2014 were selected, and the results were summarized to have the variables of year, number of subjects, the subjects' range in age, gender, and blood lead concentrations (arithmetic mean). The annual average atmospheric lead levels for four major cities (i...

The rapidly increasing annual global volume of e-waste, and of its inherently valuable fraction, has created an opportunity for individuals in Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana to make a living by using unconventional, uncontrolled, primitive and crude procedures to recycle and recover valuable metals from this waste. The current form of recycling procedures releases hazardous fractions, such as heavy metals, into the soil, posing a significant risk to the environment and human health. Using a handheld global positioning system, 132 soil samples based on 100 m grid intervals were collected and analysed for cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn)...

Carcinogenesis is a complex process involved in genotoxic and non-genotoxic pathways. The carcinogenic potential of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) has been predicted by examining their genotoxic effects using several in vitro and in vivo models. However, there is no little information regarding the non-genotoxic effects of AgNPs related to carcinogenesis. The in vitro cell transformation assay (CTA) provides specific and sensitive evidence for predicting the tumorigenic potential of a chemical, which cannot be obtained by genotoxicity testing...

Inferring causality is necessary to achieve the goal of epidemiology, which is to elucidate the cause of disease. Causal inference is conducted in three steps: evaluation of validity of the study, inference of general causality, and inference of individual causality. To evaluate validity of the study, we propose a checklist that focuses on biases and generalizability. For general causal inference, we recommend utilizing Hill's 9 viewpoints. Lastly, individual causality can be inferred based on the general causality and evidence of exposure...

Humidifier disinfectant (HD) damage was terrible chemical damage caused by household goods that happened in only South Korea, but still very little is known in HD damage. Up to now, previous research tried to focus on interstitial fibrosis on terminal bronchioles and alveoli because it is a specific finding, compared with other diseases. To figure out whole effects from HDs, much epidemiologic and toxicologic research is underway. HDs were shown to give rise to typical toxicologic effects on various target organs, such as skin, conjunctiva, naval mucosa, bronchial mucosa, alveoli and so on, which shared common toxicological responses...

In this study, the associations between mercury (Hg) exposure and cholesterol profiles were analyzed, and increased Hg levels and cholesterol profiles according to the amount of fish consumption were evaluated. Data on levels of blood Hg, the frequency of fish consumption, total blood cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and triglyceride (TG) in 3951 adults were obtained from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2010-2011 database...

Complexity and heterogeneity of soil samples have often implied the inclusion of purification steps in conventional DNA extraction for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. Unfortunately the purification steps are also time and labor intensive. Therefore the necessity of DNA purification was re-visited and investigated for a variety of environmental soil samples that contained various amounts of PCR inhibitors. Bead beating and centrifugation was used as the baseline (without purification) method for DNA extraction...

The purpose of this study is to examine whether water and air pollutants have a relationship with an increase in the genetic disorders Turner syndrome and Down syndrome, which are caused by congenital chromosomal abnormalities, and to generate a hypothesis about the genetic health effects of environmental pollutants. A panel regression based on random effect was conducted on Korea's metropolitan councils from 2012 to 2014. The dependent variable was the number of Turner syndrome and Down syndrome cases, and the main independent variables were those regarding the water and air pollution...

The present study evaluated the effects of glyphosate on Pisum sativum germination as well as its effect on the physiology and biochemistry of germinated seedlings. Different physico-chemical biomarkers, viz., chlorophyll, root and shoot length, total protein and soluble sugar, along with sodium and potassium concentration, were investigated in germinated seedlings at different glyphosate concentrations. This study reports the influence of different concentrations of glyphosate on pea seeds and seedlings. Physicochemical biomarkers were significantly changed by glyphosate exposure after 15 days...

Traffic-related pollutants have been reported to increase the morbidity of respiratory diseases. In order to apply management policies related to motor vehicles, studies of the floating population living in cities are important. The rate of metro rail transit system use by passengers residing in Seoul is about 54% of total public transportation use. Through the rate of metro use, the people-flow ratios in each administrative area were calculated. By applying a people-flow ratio based on the official census count, the floating population in 25 regions was calculated...

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