Environmental medicine
Environmental medicine: The interactions between risk factors in the environment and human health. Environmental medicine focuses on the causes of disease in an environmental context. The environment creates exposures to many different physical, biological and chemical agents. Environmental exposures may be general such as to UV-irradiation from the sun or specific such as to toxic mushrooms and dioxin.
Current concerns in environmental medicine include but are by no means limited to the environmental contributions to cancer, ozone depletion and its effects on health, global warming, air pollution, airborne allergens, water pollution, contaminated sites, nuclear accidents, radon, mercury and cadmium toxicity to the kidney, and food poisoning.
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- Environmental Protection Agency
Environmental Protection Agency: The US government agency founded to “protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment–air, water, and land–upon which life depends.” The Environmental Protection Agency is known as the EPA.
- Environmental tobacco smoke
Environmental tobacco smoke: Abbreviated ETS. Secondhand smoke. Medically reviewed by Martin Zipser, MD; Board Certified: Surgery
- Environmental toxicology
Environmental toxicology: The toxicity and toxicology of environmental pollutants in air, dust, sediment, soil and water, and natural toxins in the environment.
- Enzootic
Enzootic: Endemic in animals. An enzootic disease is constantly present in an animal population, but usually only affects a small number of animals at any one time.
- Enzyme
Enzyme: Proteins that speeds up the rate of a chemical reaction in a living organism. An enzyme acts as catalyst for specific chemical reactions, converting a specific set of reactants (called substrates) into specific products. Without enzymes, life as we know it would not exist.