Ana Lucia Ramalho Mercê
Federal University of Paraná
Brazil
Title: Chemical routes of water and soil with potentially hazardous contamination to humans: the wrong path to Epigenetics
Biography
Biography: Ana Lucia Ramalho Mercê
Abstract
Water and soil contamination by industrial wastes, medicaments, agrotoxics, heavy metals made soluble and food additives are ubiquitous in the planet, threatening our future life prospects. Can we properly deal with these environmental chemicals constantly being produced, many being persistent pollutants and / or endocrine disruptors? How much can be tolerated by us of excitotoxins food additives, petroleum based substances, and many other artificial ingredientes? The DNA expression is definitely being tampered by so many nutrition alterations. Essential metal defficiencies will lead to substitution by toxic ones in the enzyme sites. Pb replaces Ca, Cd replaces Zn and Al and Ni replace Mg and Mn. Dioxins are now found in humans by bioaccumulation in the food chain. These non natural compounds have in TCDD (2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin) an example of an odorless and colorless lethal substance. Many food contamination with other xenobiotics are also being reported all over the world. Hardly known effects in humans new processes of conserving food, like gamma- and X-rays irradiations are being used with no further explanations whatsoever. To understand a little how the environmental chemicals and food additives act on human health, chemical routes have to be explored for later, try to understand how good or bad will be their effect in our Epigenetics.