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Co-exposure of environmental contaminants with unfavorable temperature or humidity/moisture: Joint hazards and underlying mechanisms
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This review examines how extreme temperatures and changes in humidity or soil moisture interact with environmental pollutants to create combined harmful effects on living organisms. Researchers found that both high heat and low moisture conditions can amplify the toxicity of contaminants including microplastics, heavy metals, and pesticides. The study suggests that as climate change increases the frequency of extreme weather, organisms will face escalating risks from these pollutant-climate interactions.
In the context of global climate change, organisms in their natural habitats usually suffer from unfavorable climatic conditions together with environmental pollution. Temperature and humidity (or moisture) are two central climatic factors, while their relationships with the toxicity of contaminants are not well understood. This review provides a synthesis of existing knowledge on important interactions between contaminant toxicity and climatic conditions of unfavorable temperature, soil moisture, and air humidity. Both high temperature and low moisture can extensively pose severe combined hazards with organic pollutants, heavy metal ions, nanoparticles, or microplastics. There is more information on the combined effects on animalia than on other kingdoms. Prevalent mechanisms underlying their joint effects include the increased bioavailability and bioaccumulation of contaminants, modified biotransformation of contaminants, enhanced induction of oxidative stress, accelerated energy consumption, interference with cell membranes, and depletion of bodily fluids. However, the interactions of contaminants with low temperature or high humidity/moisture, particularly on plants and microorganisms, are relatively vague and need to be further revealed. This work emphasizes that the co-exposure of chemical and physical stressors results in detrimental effects generally greater than those caused by either stressor. It is necessary to take this into consideration in the ecological risk assessment of both environmental contamination and climate change.
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This review tracks how microplastics move through soil, water, and air ecosystems, acting as carriers for other pollutants like pesticides and heavy metals. When microplastics absorb these toxins, the combined effect on organisms can be worse than either pollutant alone. The paper highlights the need for better understanding of how these pollutant combinations affect ecosystems and ultimately human health through contaminated food and water.
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This review examines how the combined presence of micro- and nanoplastics with other environmental contaminants like heavy metals, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals affects toxicity. Researchers found that plastic particles can alter the bioavailability and toxic effects of co-occurring pollutants, sometimes increasing harm to organisms, which complicates environmental risk assessment.
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This review pulls together existing research showing that air pollution, extreme heat or cold, and even microplastics don't just each harm your lungs on their own—they team up to make asthma worse than any single factor would alone, likely by triggering inflammation and stress in airway cells. This matters because as climate change intensifies both pollution and temperature extremes, the real-world risk to asthma sufferers may be higher than studies looking at just one factor suggest, meaning future health guidelines may need to address these combined exposures together rather than one at a time.
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