While may be maintaining a healthy lifestyle, blending of common chemicals inside the human body may put at risk of deadly cancer.
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The task force of 174 scientists in 28 countries investigated 85 prototypic chemicals that were not considered to be carcinogenic to humans, and they reviewed their effects against a long list of mechanisms that are important for cancer development. The researchers conclude that the effects of exposures to mixtures of commonly encountered chemicals need to be better understood if we hope to reduce the frequency of cancer.
The findings supported the idea that chemicals may be capable of acting in concert with one another to cause cancer, even though low-level exposures to these chemicals individually might not be carcinogenic. Together, they pitched what is known about chemical mixtures against the full spectrum of cancer biology for the first time.
“Exposure to very low levels of these compounds cannot be avoided and also New Zealanders are exposed to these in their daily lives”, she said. An internationally recognized research university with 118 undergraduate majors and minors and 138 graduate programs, Albany is a leader among all New York State colleges and universities in such diverse fields as criminal justice, information science, public administration, social welfare, business and sociology.
Dr. Yasaei said: ‘We do not want to create a panic.
“We are now conducting a study in the general population to determine what the body burdens of New Zealanders are for these compounds”. Goodson is the lead author of this synthesis of the findings published today in the journal Carcinogenesis.
The report says: ‘Current approaches to the study of chemical exposures and carcinogenesis [formation of cancer] have not been designed to address effects at low concentrations or in complex mixtures.’
“This is an area that merits considerable attention and where interdisciplinary and worldwide collaboration is needed”, said David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment of the University at Albany (a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre) and a project contributor.
New research has discovered 50 everyday chemicals which combined could increase the risk of cancer.
Scientists suspect low-dose effects have led to global epidemic.
He said: “Despite a rising incidence of many cancers, far too small research has been invested into examining the pivotal role of environmental causative agents”. He added that chemicals which are already linked to cancer were not looked into, but those which may cause changes in the cell were focused on. “We urgently need to focus more resources to research the effect of low dose exposure to mixtures of chemicals in the food we eat, air we breathe and water we drink”. Current research estimates that chemicals could be responsible for as many as one in five cancers.
“Carcinogens can work by many different, often unrelated biochemical mechanisms – some we probably don’t know yet”.
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