Motivation of this study Human life is full of chemicals: They support the provision of cure, clothes, shelter, transportation and even nourishment of the world population. But can they also represent a risk for humans? Many of these chemicals can be taken up into the human body. Often, they are transformed and excreted directly, but some chemicals persist over longer time periods or accumulate in living organisms. Since there are many thousands of chemicals in the environment and products humans use on a daily basis, there may be complex mixtures around, and consequently also in the human body. The investigators start a new project at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig, Germany. It is called EXPOSO-METER and attempts to make these chemicals measurable in an easy and comparable way, to better characterize this potential hazard. With the valuable contribution of the participants and collaborators, the investigators will be able to describe and compare the situation for similar groups of study participants in Central Europe, North America and Asia. The aim is to characterize the chemicals and see which potential effects their presence may have. In the project, the investigators will also compare human samples to material from the environment, e.g., seal and fox samples, to improve the understanding of the occurrence and fate of chemicals in the environment and in the human body.
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Patterns of the human exposome in three global regions
Timeframe: samples will be collected only on the very same day when the planned surgery is carried out, questionnaires will be filled in the same context