Environmental toxicology and associated human health risks
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EDITORIAL
Environmental toxicology and associated human health risks Muhammad Shahid 1 & Muhammad Nadeem 1 & Hafiz Faiq Bakhat 1
# Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Introduction Ecosystem toxicology by anthropogenic activities is a diverse and serious issue confronting society, scientists, and regulatory authorities worldwide. Recently, the world has witnessed rapid and uneven industrial and technological developments accompanied with non-judicial and un-sustainable use of nonrenewable resources. Resultantly, several products and byproducts of the activities have become pollutants consequently affecting the environmental health and integrity (Sarwar et al. 2019; Shahid et al. 2017b). The impacts associated with these pollutants range from local to regional and transboundaries as the contaminants are transported, circulated, and accumulated in different environmental compartments (Khalid et al. 2020a; Natasha et al. 2020c; Shahid et al. 2014, 2017c). As a result, ecosystem contamination has become a widespread global concern. The environmental toxicology by various pollutants, especially trace elements, has raised many hazards to human, plants, and ecological health (Natasha et al. 2020d; Shabbir et al. 2020; Shahid et al. 2020b). A number of these pollutants are highly persistent, build up in human tissues, and are capable of inducing various human health disorders (Antoniadis et al. 2019; Shahid et al. 2020a). When humans are exposed to supra-optimal levels of these pollutants, they induce or contribute to a number of diseases such as cancer, reproductive disorders, respiratory diseases, and immune system injuries. Consequently, the noxious effects of hazardous pollutants have appeared as substantial scientific and social challenges to produce pollutant-free food. It is always precarious to assess the pollutant-mediated human health effects as there exist diverse and complex Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues * Muhammad Shahid [email protected] 1
Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Vehari Campus, Vehari 61100, Pakistan
pathways by which human may get exposed to such pollutants (Amen et al. 2020; Antoniadis et al. 2019; Shah et al. 2020; Shahid et al. 2012). Human exposure to these pollutants may be through inhaling, ingesting/absorbing from atmosphere, food, soil, and water in many types of settings. Uptake and accumulation of pollutants in edible plant tissues has been reported a major pathway of human exposure. Numerous recent studies have traced the possible pathways of soil-planthuman transfer of pollutants and associated toxic effects (Natasha et al. 2020a; Shahid et al. 2017a). Segments of the populations such as the elderly, children, minorities, chronically ill, and the poor may be at the top vulnerability to harmful risks associated with environmental toxicology. Likewise, risk assessment has become exceedingly topical, especially in marketable edibles produced by urban and peri-urban agriculture (Rafiq et al. 2017; Shamshad
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