Highlights
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Mitochondria have been shown to be fundamental regulators of the cell danger response (CDR) that controls innate immunity, inflammation, healing, and aging.
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The setpoint of the CDR is adjusted by exposure to chemical, physical, and microbial stressors in the environment.
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Chemical pollution in waterways, air, soil, and the food chain interferes with the biology of healing, leads to persistent activation of CDR, and to chronic illness.
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New methods in metabolomics and exposomics can be applied to identify the greatest chemical threats and provide data needed to turn back the rising tide of chronic illness.
Abstract
This paper is written for non-specialists in mitochondrial biology to provide access to an important area of science that has broad implications for all people. The cell danger response (CDR) is a universal response to environmental threat or injury. Once triggered, healing cannot be completed until the choreographed stages of the CDR are returned to an updated state of readiness.
Although the CDR is a cellular response, it has the power to change human thought and behavior, child development, physical fitness and resilience, fertility, and the susceptibility of entire populations to disease. Mitochondria regulate the CDR by monitoring and responding to the physical, chemical, and microbial conditions within and around the cell. In this way, mitochondria connect cellular health to environmental health. Over 7,000 chemicals are now made or imported to the US for industrial, agricultural, and personal care use in amounts ranging from 25,000 to over 1 million pounds each year, and plastic waste now exceeds 83 billion pounds/year.
This chemical load creates a rising tide of manmade pollutants in the oceans, air, water, and food chain. Fewer than 5% of these chemicals have been tested for developmental toxicity. In the 1980s, 5-10% of children lived with a chronic illness. As of 2018, 40% of children, 50% of teens, 60% of adults under age 65, and 90% of adults over 65 live with chronic illness. Several studies now report the presence of dozens to hundreds of manmade chemicals and pollutants in placenta, umbilical cord blood, and newborn blood spots.
New methods in metabolomics and exposomics allow scientists to measure thousands of chemicals in blood, air, water, soil, and the food chain. Systematic measurements of environmental chemicals can now be correlated with annual and regional patterns of childhood illness. These data can be used to prepare a prioritized list of molecules for congressional action, ranked according to their impact on human health.
“When a deep injury is done to us, we never heal until we forgive.”
--Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)
