Host: Analies Ross-Dyjak
Category: 🔬 Research
Podcast’s Essential Bites:
[1:00] “Bioaccumulation is the process of toxic chemicals building up inside your body. […] I think the best example to think about bioaccumulation in humans is using the example of lead. […] Lead [is] a neurotoxin and caus[es] these lifelong, irreversible damages to the brain, especially in children. So lead can bioaccumulate in the body over time. […] The way that bioaccumulation works is an individual is accumulating that substance at a faster rate than their body is removing it. Usually, our body has these functions that allow us to excrete substances that we don't want around through urine. […] But there are instances where the level of toxin is just accumulating faster than it's being excreted in your urine.”
[2:56] “Biomagnification […] has more to do with different organisms moving up trophic levels. So probably mercury and fish is the best example. […] The fish absorbs mercury in the water that they're swimming in […] and then humans of course, consum[e] the fish. So basically, […] as the mercury is working its way up trophic levels, the mercury levels are increasing because the organism in the next trophic level requires more of that organism to sustain itself. […] So the level of mercury is growing each time with trophic levels. […] You are what your food eats.”
[5:06] “If there is a polluted body of water, whether it's from stormwater runoff or direct pollution from some sort of industrial plant, whatever it is, that is impacting the health of that body of water, which down the road could impact your health. So, it's all connected. […] Although we've worked really, really hard to clean up our bodies of water in the US since the 1970s, since the Clean Water Act was first enacted, we still have a […] long road ahead of us.”
Rating: 💧💧
🎙️ Full Episode: Apple
🕰️ 7 min | 🗓️ 12/03/2021
✅ Time saved: 6 min
Additional Links:
Hydroviv Blog: Bioaccumulation & Biomagnification
