Measurement of Chemical Inhalation Exposure in Urban Population in the Presence of Endogenous Effluents

Our recently developed expired air method was applied to a carefully selected urban population of normal, healthy, non-smoking human subjects in order to isolate, identify, and quantify potentially toxic substances and their biotransformation products accumulated in the human body during normal inhalation exposure to environmental pollutants. The method was found to be capable of providing a noninvasive measure of human environmental chemical inhalation exposure in the presence of volatile metabolites. In addition, it offered baseline information upon which studies may be advanced toward the evaluation of health hazards associated with tobacco smoking and occupational, industrial, accidental, or deliberate human chemical exposure.