What is biomonitoring?
Biomonitoring is a technique for measuring chemicals in our bodies. It involves collecting a person’s blood, urine, or another biological specimen and analyzing it to see if certain chemicals are present, and at what levels. A good example of biomonitoring is the widespread testing of children’s blood to make sure that they do not have elevated levels of lead, which can cause a number of serious health problems. We come into contact with hundreds of environmental chemicals each day through the food we eat, the beverages we drink, the air we breathe, and the products we use. Biomonitoring can be used to help understand our exposure to many environmental chemicals. In addition, biomonitoring can provide information about how well environmental protection efforts and laws are working to protect the public from too much exposure to specific toxic chemicals.
Biomonitoring is the assessment of human exposure to chemicals by measuring the chemicals or their metabolites in human biological specimens including blood or urine. A metabolite is the chemical alteration of the original compound produced by body tissues. Blood and urine levels reflect the amount of the chemical that actually gets into the body from the environment. Several government agencies within the United Sates, Canada, and Europe are either currently conducting or planning to conduct large scale biomonitoring programs to gather information on the concentrations of selected chemicals in human blood or urine. Currently, over 300 different compounds have been quantified in human blood or urine samples. See the Additional Resources and Information page for links to sites with additional information on biomonitoring.
Put most simply, biomonitoring is measuring chemicals in peoples bodies. You may not have heard the term, but youre probably familiar with some examples: testing blood for lead levels, breathalyzer tests for drunk driving, and drug tests. These are all biomonitoring. They measure levels of a chemical in peoples bodies by testing a body tissue or fluid in these cases, blood, breath, and urine. Other types of body fluids or tissues used include hair, saliva, and breast milk. With the help of new instruments, scientists can now measure very small amounts of chemicals in the body more easily and cheaply than ever before. Biomonitoring is an important tool for researchers conducting health studies. The U.S. government now releases a report every two years that measures levels of a growing list of chemicals in a large group of Americans. And biomonitoring is increasingly being used by community-based and environmental advocacy groups to document exposure to chemicals in the environment. For
Biomonitoring is the analysis of human bodily fluids and tissues for purposes of measuring people’s exposure to chemicals. Chemicals leave “markers” in the body that can be measured. Moreover, if a compound has already been processed by the body, researchers can also measure “metabolites,” which are the byproducts of the body’s absorption and processing of chemicals. The most advanced analytical tools can precisely detect chemicals in amounts as minuscule as one part per trillion, which equates to one particle of a compound for every 999,999,999,999 other particles. Or put another way, one part per trillion is equal to a single drop of liquid in 12 million gallons. Biomonitoring can involve a variety of body fluids and tissues. Blood, urine, saliva and breast milk are most commonly tested for the presence of chemical markers, although hair, nails, semen, fat and bone also may be sampled.[1] Biomonitoring actually dates to the 1800s, when it was used to monitor the treatment of rheumati
Biomonitoring is a field of scientific research which analyzes the tissues of humans or animals to detect and measure the subject’s exposure to both natural and synthetic, or man-made, chemicals. Both natural and synthetic chemicals leave their impact on the body in one way or another through “markers.” These markers can either be the actual chemical which remains in the body’s tissues, or the by-products of its breakdown. Biomonitoring measures what remains in the body’s tissues after exposure to these chemicals. Biomonitoring does not, however, determine how the person or animal came in contact with the chemical, how they ingested it into the body, how long ago the exposure occurred, or whether the chemical exposure is actually harmful to the body. We know that natural and synthetic, harmless and toxic chemicals make their way into our soil, air and drinking water — what biomonitoring does is determine how much of it is making it into our bodies. A biomonitoring study is generally co
