Early-Life Exposome Analysis Identifies Key Environmental Risks

Researchers present an atlas of how prenatal and childhood environmental exposures are linked to health well into adolescence. The atlas maps the early-life exposome – a sum total of pollutants, chemicals, and lifestyle factors – and identifies a set of "master regulators" associated with multiple aspects of health. "Our study points to exposures with potential multi-system impact – such as tobacco smoke, indoor air pollution, dietary quality, and built environment features – that are amenable to intervention and policy action," Augusto Anguita Ruiz and colleagues write. Before now, studies have sought to examine exposures and health outcomes one at a time, often at a single point in childhood. Here, Anguita Ruiz et al. instead took an outcome-wide approach. Using data from 586 mother-child pairs from the Human Early Life Exposome (HELIX) European cohort, they analyzed nearly 200 prenatal and childhood exposures, including pollutants, chemicals, lifestyle factors (such as diet), and neighborhood environment. They tested these against 11 outcomes spanning mental, cardiometabolic, respiratory, and allergic health. Six prenatal and 42 childhood exposures were associated with multiple outcomes, and many of these associations persisted from childhood (ages 6 to 11) into adolescence (ages 12 to 18). The exposures with the broadest reach included indoor air pollution, maternal smoking, and urban features (such as residential facility density). Diet also mattered; adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet and greater fruit intake were linked to better cardiometabolic health. Because the study is observational and drew on a moderate-sized, largely white European sample, the authors call for replication in larger and more diverse populations. For easy access to the atlas, the authors present an open-source interactive resource (https://outcomewide.isglobal.org/).