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Gastrointestinal tract
Raman Sreedharan1, Devendra I Mehta
1Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Insights
Environmental toxins impact the developing gastrointestinal tract from conception through adolescence. Understanding these effects is crucial due to incomplete detoxification pathways and unique vulnerabilities in children.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Environmental Health
- Gastrointestinal Toxicology
- Developmental Biology
Background:
- The developing gastrointestinal tract interacts with a complex environment from conception to adolescence.
- Early exposure to environmental toxins can occur when detoxification pathways are immature, increasing vulnerability.
- Novel toxins are increasingly entering the gastrointestinal tract, posing risks to developing humans.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the toxic effects of environmental toxins on the gastrointestinal tract during development.
- To highlight knowledge gaps in understanding the impact of environmental toxins on children's GI health.
- To discuss the challenges in assessing toxin exposure risks in infants and children.
Main Methods:
- Literature review focusing on environmental toxins and their effects on the developing gastrointestinal system.
- Analysis of existing data on toxin exposure, vulnerability, and detoxification in pediatric populations.
- Synthesis of information regarding low-dose, long-term exposures and their potential interactions.
Main Results:
- Environmental toxins pose significant risks to the developing gastrointestinal tract.
- Children exhibit unique vulnerabilities due to incomplete metabolic pathways and physiological differences compared to adults.
- Current understanding of threshold levels and long-term effects of environmental toxins in children is limited.
Conclusions:
- Further research is needed to fully understand the impact of environmental toxins on the pediatric gastrointestinal tract.
- Developmental stage, size, and physiological maturation significantly influence susceptibility to toxic effects.
- Addressing knowledge gaps is essential for protecting children's gastrointestinal health from environmental exposures.
Abstract:
The developing gastrointestinal tract from conception to adolescence is in constant direct interaction with an increasingly complex environment. This sets up the potential for unrecognized acute as well as chronic disorders, some of which may be difficult to pinpoint in a developing infant and child, given the wide variations that exist. It is startling to note how early some environmental toxins can come into contact with the developing human, where vulnerability may be heightened and maturation of detoxifying pathways may be incomplete. Although the complex process of recognizing, detoxifying, and avoiding the toxic substance by the body has presumably evolved over a substantial period of time, in this rapidly changing world, the array of novel toxins that make their way into the gastrointestinal tract is increasing. There remain many gaps in understanding the effects of environmental toxins on all of the developmental stages from conception to adolescence. Although threshold levels have typically been derived from adult or animal data, factors such as size, relative differences in consumption in proportion to size especially in infancy, and variable physiologic maturation of metabolic pathways are not well understood. The vulnerability may be further accentuated by physical factors that alter with maturity, such as permeability and critical times during organogenesis or organ maturation. Also of concern is how little is known about low-dose, long-term exposure, as well as any interplay with common illnesses. This article focuses on environmental toxins that have been shown to have toxic effects on the gastrointestinal tract.
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