ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with environmental toxins from an efficacy standpoint and from a cost-effectiveness, practicality, and patient compliance standpoint. Toxicity due to environmental toxin exposure is a state of being that is not only defined by often unavoidable levels of toxin exposure. The chapter examines the basics of the impact of environmental toxin exposure in relation to their impact on health from three perspectives—immunotoxicology, neurotoxicology, and endocrine toxicology. Endocrine toxicity and endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have received a tremendous amount of attention from the research community. While EDCs have drawn attention due to their impact on numerous organ systems and physiologic processes, the impact that seems to have created the greatest concern over the last few years is that which deals with reproductive health. Toxicity-related signs and symptoms developed due to chronic, long-term exposure to small amounts of sometimes dozens of different chemicals and heavy metals that are the reality of modern-day society in industrialized nations.
