Novel approach to test the adverse impacts of man-made chemical mixtures

Concerns over our seemingly constant exposure to chemical mixtures of all kinds have been growing in the past two decades. This is because endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) found in various materials such as pesticides, metals, additives in food and personal care products are believed to be associated with various health risks. These include altered reproductive function in males and females, increased incidence of breast cancer, abnormal growth patterns and neurodevelopmental delays in children. 

Despite the significant progress in understanding and regulating EDCs, risk assessment and management practices have mainly focused on exposure to single substances. As such, it's crucial to also identify the impact of EDC mixtures. Enter the EU-funded EDC-MixRisk project that has studied the effects of prenatal exposure to such EDCs on children's health.

The project's key results and conclusions were recently published in a policy brief. EDC-MixRisk used epidemiology data from the Swedish pregnancy cohort SELMA and created reference mixtures mimicking real-life exposures. 

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