Cargando…

The impact of new research technologies on our understanding of environmental causes of disease: the concept of clinical vulnerability

In spite of decades of epidemiological research, the etiology and causal patterns for many common diseases, such as breast and colon cancer or neurodegenerative diseases, are still largely unknown. Such chronic diseases are likely to have an environmental origin. However, "environmental" r...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Vineis, Paolo, Khan, Aneire E, Vlaanderen, Jelle, Vermeulen, Roel
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793242/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19948053
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-8-54
_version_ 1782175303152435200
author Vineis, Paolo
Khan, Aneire E
Vlaanderen, Jelle
Vermeulen, Roel
author_facet Vineis, Paolo
Khan, Aneire E
Vlaanderen, Jelle
Vermeulen, Roel
author_sort Vineis, Paolo
collection PubMed
description In spite of decades of epidemiological research, the etiology and causal patterns for many common diseases, such as breast and colon cancer or neurodegenerative diseases, are still largely unknown. Such chronic diseases are likely to have an environmental origin. However, "environmental" risks have been often elusive in epidemiological studies. This is a conundrum for current epidemiological research. On the other side, the relative contribution of genes to chronic diseases, as emerging from GWAS, seems to be modest (15-50% increase in disease risk). What is yet to be explored extensively is a model of disease based on long-term effects of low doses of environmental exposures, incorporating both genetic and acquired susceptibility ("clinical vulnerability"), and the cumulative effects of different exposures. Such a disease model would be compatible with the weak associations found by GWAS and the still elusive role of many (low-level) environmental exposures. We also propose that the introduction of "-omic" high-throughput technologies, such as transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics, may provide, in the next years, powerful tools to investigate early effects of environmental exposures and understand the etiology of common diseases better, according to the "clinical vulnerability model". The development of "-omics", in spite of current limitations and lack of sound validation, could greatly contribute to the elucidation of the disease model we propose.
format Text
id pubmed-2793242
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2009
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-27932422009-12-15 The impact of new research technologies on our understanding of environmental causes of disease: the concept of clinical vulnerability Vineis, Paolo Khan, Aneire E Vlaanderen, Jelle Vermeulen, Roel Environ Health Commentary In spite of decades of epidemiological research, the etiology and causal patterns for many common diseases, such as breast and colon cancer or neurodegenerative diseases, are still largely unknown. Such chronic diseases are likely to have an environmental origin. However, "environmental" risks have been often elusive in epidemiological studies. This is a conundrum for current epidemiological research. On the other side, the relative contribution of genes to chronic diseases, as emerging from GWAS, seems to be modest (15-50% increase in disease risk). What is yet to be explored extensively is a model of disease based on long-term effects of low doses of environmental exposures, incorporating both genetic and acquired susceptibility ("clinical vulnerability"), and the cumulative effects of different exposures. Such a disease model would be compatible with the weak associations found by GWAS and the still elusive role of many (low-level) environmental exposures. We also propose that the introduction of "-omic" high-throughput technologies, such as transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics, may provide, in the next years, powerful tools to investigate early effects of environmental exposures and understand the etiology of common diseases better, according to the "clinical vulnerability model". The development of "-omics", in spite of current limitations and lack of sound validation, could greatly contribute to the elucidation of the disease model we propose. BioMed Central 2009-11-30 /pmc/articles/PMC2793242/ /pubmed/19948053 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-8-54 Text en Copyright ©2009 Vineis et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Commentary
Vineis, Paolo
Khan, Aneire E
Vlaanderen, Jelle
Vermeulen, Roel
The impact of new research technologies on our understanding of environmental causes of disease: the concept of clinical vulnerability
title The impact of new research technologies on our understanding of environmental causes of disease: the concept of clinical vulnerability
title_full The impact of new research technologies on our understanding of environmental causes of disease: the concept of clinical vulnerability
title_fullStr The impact of new research technologies on our understanding of environmental causes of disease: the concept of clinical vulnerability
title_full_unstemmed The impact of new research technologies on our understanding of environmental causes of disease: the concept of clinical vulnerability
title_short The impact of new research technologies on our understanding of environmental causes of disease: the concept of clinical vulnerability
title_sort impact of new research technologies on our understanding of environmental causes of disease: the concept of clinical vulnerability
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793242/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19948053
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-8-54
work_keys_str_mv AT vineispaolo theimpactofnewresearchtechnologiesonourunderstandingofenvironmentalcausesofdiseasetheconceptofclinicalvulnerability
AT khananeiree theimpactofnewresearchtechnologiesonourunderstandingofenvironmentalcausesofdiseasetheconceptofclinicalvulnerability
AT vlaanderenjelle theimpactofnewresearchtechnologiesonourunderstandingofenvironmentalcausesofdiseasetheconceptofclinicalvulnerability
AT vermeulenroel theimpactofnewresearchtechnologiesonourunderstandingofenvironmentalcausesofdiseasetheconceptofclinicalvulnerability
AT vineispaolo impactofnewresearchtechnologiesonourunderstandingofenvironmentalcausesofdiseasetheconceptofclinicalvulnerability
AT khananeiree impactofnewresearchtechnologiesonourunderstandingofenvironmentalcausesofdiseasetheconceptofclinicalvulnerability
AT vlaanderenjelle impactofnewresearchtechnologiesonourunderstandingofenvironmentalcausesofdiseasetheconceptofclinicalvulnerability
AT vermeulenroel impactofnewresearchtechnologiesonourunderstandingofenvironmentalcausesofdiseasetheconceptofclinicalvulnerability