A prospective whole-mixture approach to assess risk of the food and chemical exposome

Many widely used chemicals result in ubiquitous human exposure from multiple sources, including diet. Legislation mainly deals with the toxicological evaluation of single substances owing to a methodological and conceptual lack of alternatives, and does so within defined silos subject to over 40 distinct regulations in the EU alone. Furthermore, much of the research and many of the initiatives concerned with the assessment and evaluation of chemical mixtures and their potential effects on human health rely on retrospective analysis. Here we propose an approach for the prospective identification, assessment and regulation of mixtures relevant to human health. We address two distinct aspects of toxicology—which chemicals actually do occur together, and how potential mixture-related health hazards can be predicted—with an adapted concept of the exposome and large-scale hazard screens. The proactive use of the likelihood of co-exposure, together with the new approach of methods-based testing, may be a timely and feasible way of identifying those substances and mixtures where hazards may have been overlooked and regulatory action is needed. Ideally, we would generate co-exposure patterns for specific consumer groups, depending on lifestyle and dietary habits, to assess the specific risk of identified mixtures. Continuous and chronic exposure to mixtures of multiple chemicals, particularly from food, medicine and cleaning products, are of concern. A proactive combinatorial approach to identify, assess and regulate the likelihood of exposure and potential health effects is presented.