Exposome
What is the exposome?
The exposome is a concept used in environmental health to describe the set of exposures to which a person is subjected from the moment of conception until the end of life. It includes all physical, chemical, biological and psycho-social factors that affect the body, as well as the interactions between them.
This approach represents an important shift from traditional research models, which analysed environmental risks in isolation. Instead of studying a single pollutant or one specific lifestyle habit, the exposome proposes analysing the totality of exposures accumulated over time. It is considered an integrative framework that allows a more complete study of the relationship between environment and health.
It represents a new way of understanding the relationship between human beings and their environment. By considering the cumulative effect of multiple exposures, it provides a more realistic view of the causes of disease and opens new possibilities for improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
The three domains of the exposome
Although genetics influences individual susceptibility and biological processes, environmental and lifestyle factors play a fundamental role in health outcomes across the life course, including development, ageing, and disease susceptibility.
Exogenous environment: general and specific
From the exposome perspective, it is first necessary to consider external factors, which include all exposures originating from the environment (exogenous environment). These exposures can be distinguished between those that affect populations in general and those that are specific to each individual.
- The general exogenous environment includes elements such as air pollution, climate, the urban environment, or socioeconomic conditions, which influence groups of people in a similar way when they share the same geographical context.
- The specific exogenous environment depends on the characteristics and lifestyle of each person, such as diet, physical activity, tobacco or alcohol consumption, type of occupation, or particular exposure to chemical substances. This also includes dietary factors.
Factors in the exogenous environment, which are closely related to the social determinants of health, may act simultaneously and over long periods of time, altering the normal functioning of the body and contributing to the development of diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases or respiratory disorders, as well as other conditions such as childhood obesity. However, the exposome is not limited to external factors, but also incorporates the body’s internal processes.
Endogenous environment
The endogenous environment determines how each person responds to environmental exposures. These processes include metabolism, inflammation, oxidative stress and gut microbiota activity, all of which can modify the biological response to environmental factors.
Exposomics and its importance in current research
The scientific study of the exposome is known as exposomics, an interdisciplinary field that combines epidemiology, toxicology, molecular biology, chemistry and large-scale data analysis.
Thanks to technological advances, it is now possible to measure more precisely chemical substances in the body , as well as metabolic changes or alterations in the immune system, making it possible to link specific exposures to health effects. In public health, the exposome helps to identify risk factors that previously went unnoticed and supports the design of more effective prevention strategies.
Diagram illustrating the exposome concept, showing interactions between personal exposures (e.g., diet, sleep, smoking), external environmental exposures (e.g., air pollution, noise, climate), and biological responses (e.g., inflammation, epigenetics, metabolomics).
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- The Exposome Hub(ISGlobal)
- The urban environment during pregnancy influences the risk of wheezing and respiratory infections in early childhood(ISGlobal, 2025)
- Clean Air, Natural Spaces, Healthy Diets and Strong Social Bonds Linked to Lower Inflammation in Childhood(ISGlobal, 2025)
- Exposure to Heat and Cold During Pregnancy Associated with Changes in Foetal Growth(ISGlobal, 2024)
- The Challenge of the Exposome: How to Determine Cause-Effect Relationships Among Hundreds or Thousands of Data?(ISGlobal, 2022)
- How Do Individuals Interact with the Urban Environment?(ISGlobal, 2022)
- New Study Provides a Unique Resource for Understanding How Environmental Exposures in Early Life Affect our Health(ISGlobal, 2022)
- Air Pollution, Smoking and Built Environment are Associated with an Increase Risk of Childhood Obesity(ISGlobal, 2020)
- The Exposome: Understanding the Effect of the Environment on Our Health(ISGlobal, 2016)
- Why Exposome is Challenging Research(ISGlobal, 2016)
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