Health Consequences of Environmental Exposures in Early Life

By applying a metabolomics approach in a mother-child cohort, we have recently found that prenatal exposure to perfluorinated substances alters lipid profiles of newborn infants, increasing risk of type 1 diabetes. Our findings may explain changing incidence of T1D. In the proposed project, we will expand our investigations of health impacts of exposures in early life by combining a highly-efficient workflow: comprehensive profiling of human early-life exposure through both targeted and non-targeted screening of environmental contaminants and the metabolome in well-characterised, prospective, human mother-child cohorts, combined with animal models and bioinformatics strategies. This project will provide new data that can significantly contribute to advancing non-toxic environmental goals, as defined in the European Union 7th Environment Action Plan, and in Swedish environmental goals of Non-toxic environment, particularly the goal of decreasing children´s exposure to harmful chemicals. Our project will allow us to associate environmental exposure during foetal development and early life to health effects, characterise the pathways

leading to the adverse health outcomes and elucidate the combinatorial effects of chemical mixtures that the child is exposed to. We also aim to identify metabolic biomarkers resulting from such exposure with applications to biomonitoring at the population level.