Assessing health risks from multiple environmental stressors: Moving from G ×E to I×E

We describe the utility of the I×E concept to better understand and characterize the cumulative impact of multiple extrinsic and intrinsic factors on individual and population health. New research methods increasingly facilitate the measurement of multifactorial and interactive effects in epidemiological and toxicological studies. Tiered or indicator-based approaches can guide the selection of potentially relevant I and E factors for study and quantification, and exposomics methods may eventually produce results that can be used to generate a response function over the life course. Quantitative data on I×E interactive effects should generate a better understanding of the variability in human response to environmental factors. The proposed I×E concept highlights the role for broader study design in order to identify extrinsic and intrinsic factors amenable to interventions at the individual and population levels in order to enhance resilience, reduce vulnerability and improve health.
Source: Mutation Research Reviews in Mutation Research - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Source Type: research