An overview of mycotoxin biomarker application in exposome-health studies

Exposure assessment in epidemiological studies remains as a key bias domain, prompting for reliable and accurate methods reflecting the true individual exposure. For that reason, use of exposure biomarkers has become gold-standard method environmental chemicals food contaminants epidemiology. In last few years, growing list biomonitoring revealed widespread population to mycotoxins, mainly aflatoxins, ochratoxins or trichothecenes, subject geographical localisation. Despite advances mass-spectrometry, mycotoxins remain largely overlooked by mainstream research. To date, scarce evidence elucidated associations between aflatoxins hepatocellular carcinoma, cirrhosis impairment infant growth. The novel exposome paradigm offers unique opportunity boost research mycotoxins. Nonetheless, there is an urgent need catch attention researchers, especially those intending develop chemical-agnostic approaches pathologies populations where may represent concern.