Environmental health perspectives
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Environ. Health Perspect. · Aug 2014
The blood exposome and its role in discovering causes of disease.
Since 2001, researchers have examined the human genome (G) mainly to discover causes of disease, despite evidence that G explains relatively little risk. We posit that unexplained disease risks are caused by the exposome (E; representing all exposures) and G × E interactions. Thus, etiologic research has been hampered by scientists' continuing reliance on low-tech methods to characterize E compared with high-tech omics for characterizing G. ⋯ For studies of disease etiology, the complexity of human exposures motivates characterization of the blood exposome, which includes all biologically active chemicals. Because most small molecules in blood are not human metabolites, investigations of causal pathways should expand beyond the endogenous metabolome.