Section 4: Interactions
- Page ID
- 316736
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Learning Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
- Explain the impacts that can be experienced when two or more chemicals interact.
- List realistic examples of chemical interactions.
In this section...
Topics include:
Did you know?
Gasoline is a volatile, complex mixture of hydrocarbon compounds. The mixture is easily vaporized during handling in normal conditions. People are exposed to this complex substance during refueling at service stations. More information is available on consumer exposure to gasoline.
In this section, we will look into the effects of interactions among such chemicals.
Figure 1. Refueling car
(Image Source: iStock Photos, ©)
What We've Covered
In this section, we explored the following key points:
- Interactions between multiple chemicals can:
- Decrease toxicity (antagonism).
- Add to toxicity (additivity).
- Increase toxicity (synergism or potentiation).
- Interactions can occur by simultaneous exposure or if exposure to the agents is separated by time.
- People are normally exposed to many chemicals and combinations of chemicals every day.
- Emerging approaches in assessing interactions include:
- Adverse outcome pathways (AOPs).
- In vitro methods.
- "Omics" techniques.
- In silico approaches.
Coming Up...
In the next section, we will explore various methods for testing toxicity.