REN R360 Lecture Notes - Biomonitoring, Bioaccumulation, Carcinogen

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Renewable Resources
• Course: REN R360
• Professor: Melanie Muise

Document Summary

Chemical body burdens: the quantitative amount of chemicals in our bodies that accumulates over times, most of the data is based on animal studies and can"t be done on humans because it is unethical. Therefore, these data are somewhat comparable to humans but they are great indicators of the direction of study: they are not stable over time. Their amount in the body changes over time because the human body (special organs) may break down or rearrange the chemicals into other chemicals. As well it is not distributed evenly throughout the body. For example, the liver: there are some chemicals detected using detecting methods, but some are in so low concentrations that they are not traceable. In canada and the usa there is a program called biomonitoring which monitors the common population to see how many chemicals are present in the average person and if there are any health risks present.