Tag: Xenobiotic

Over 1.3 million deaths worldwide each year are caused by environmental pollutants, which are a major class of xenobiotics. A xenobiotic is any chemical substance found within an organism that is not normally produced or expected to be present, making naturally occurring endogenous compounds the answer to what is not a xenobiotic. This distinction is fundamental to toxicology, pharmacology, and environmental science.

An estimated daily intake of naturally occurring xenobiotics from a typical diet is approximately 2 grams, vastly outweighing the 0.09 mg of pesticides consumed, challenging the simple notion of food safety. This raises a profound question: is food a xenobiotic, or is the answer far more nuanced?