engleski

Environmental Effects on Food and Cancer

While functional foods play a role in disease prevention and health promotion, on the other side of the story we may deal with many toxic, unwanted compounds which may be health-impairing and induce chronic diseases, including the initiation, promotion, and progression of cancer. Cancerous cells arise from normal somatic stem cells due to the long-term accumulation of specific genetic alterations. Indeed, genotoxicity is a consequence of xenobiotic compounds that have entered the body. Various xenobiotics are released in the environment and eventually become a part of the food chain, including residues from pesticides, veterinary pharmaceuticals and drugs, and contaminating substances or originating from industrial processes such as metals, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, etc. Some substances are added to food intentionally during its production, processing and distribution (e.g. numerous food additives). Compounds like bisphenol A or phthalates can seep into the food from its food packaging, and are highly diverse and depend on the type of packaging material. Carcinogenic risk from xenobiotics is difficult to determine accurately because of the complexity of effects caused by residue mixtures in the diet and additionally due to lack of human data. However, several relationships and mechanisms are straightforward and these will be the subject matter covered in this chapter.

ccancer ; food ; xenobiotics ; toxicity ; pesticides ; dioxins ; polychlorinated biphenyls ; metals ; bisphenol A ; phthalates

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