Environmental mycology in public health: fungi and mycotoxins risk assessment and management

Fungi are essential to the survival of our global ecology, but they might pose a significant threat to the health of occupants when they grow in our buildings. The exposure to fungi in homes is a significant risk factor for a number of respiratory symptoms. Well-known illnesses caused by fungi include allergy and hypersensitivity pneumonitis. Environmental monitoring for fungi and their disease agents are important aspects of exposure assessment, but few guidelines exist for interpreting their health impacts. This book answers the questions: How does one detect and measure the presence of indoor fungi? What is an acceptable level of indoor fungi? How do we relate this information to human health problems?

Human biomonitoring: biomarkers, susceptibility, and nutrigenetics

The methods of molecular biology applied in epidemiological research lead us to the realm of molecular epidemiology, where there is immense potential for the establishment of associations between cancer and exposure to risk factors in lifestyle, profession, or pollution. Human biomonitoring consists, on the one hand, in research and identification of hazardous environmental conditions and, on the other hand, in the assessment of cancer risk following exposure to such conditions. Since carcinogenesis is a lengthy process, the biomarkers used to recognize biological abnormalities are selected and developed in the realm of molecular epidemiology. Such biomarkers are quantifiable and allow for the recognition of progression from normal to abnormal biological conditions at the molecular level. They can be categorized in biomarkers of exposure, effect, and genetic susceptibility. Genotoxicity biomarkers are a particular subset of effect biomarkers and are used to assess genomic instability caused by environmental or occupational exposure, being considered useful carcinogenesis predictors.