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How does our body handle very small amount of chemicals?

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shvcko99:

--- Quote from: Borek on May 29, 2022, 08:37:56 AM ---
--- Quote from: shvcko99 on May 29, 2022, 08:10:19 AM ---but not naturally existing like oxygen or carbon dioxide etc
--- End quote ---

"Naturally existing" is just another meaningless classification. Practically all these substances exist in nature, and even if some don't they belong to classes of the compounds that are present in our environment. Our bodies did not evolve to deal with particular substances but with these classes and in most cases they do have mechanisms to deal with these things.


--- Quote ---how they are handled? Are they mostly discharged through egestion and excretion safely?

--- End quote ---

As I already wrote: all mechanisms you described play their roles and all are in use, there is no single, simple answer.

--- End quote ---

but if you still think my questions are too broad to answer, then I will try to give a clear note on the "substance" I am concerned. May I ask how bad it could be if our food is unintentionally contaminated with small amount of household cleaner, detergent, dead bugs, paper, newspaper, ink from newspaper, paint pieces, rubber, cigarette smoke, cigarette residue, saliva from unknown someone, mucus or booger from nose, etc

Borek:
99.999% of the cases it is not a problem at all. Look around - how many of your friends/relatives got sick because of any of these?

Form the statistical point of view you are making much more harm to yourself stressing yourself with a fear that something can happen, than you risk from these things happening.

There was at least one, widely reported case of a woman hit by a meteorite, yet we don't bother to carry thick armor plates all the time, doesn't make much sense.

Babcock_Hall:
You may want to read up on xenobiotics.  I might be tempted to define them as compounds that we ingest that are not food.  Sometimes are they are defined as being synthetic (man-made), but I don't see a good reason to do so.  Many xenobiotic compounds undergo metabolism of some sort.  They might be conjugated with (joined to) another molecule to make them more water-soluble, and therefore easier to excrete in the urine.  They might also undergo a transformation of some kind, usually involving the addition of one or more oxygen atoms.  This also makes them easier to excrete.  Drugs, whether man-made or naturally occurring, are a type of xenobiotic.

shvcko99:

--- Quote from: Borek on May 30, 2022, 05:24:20 AM ---99.999% of the cases it is not a problem at all. Look around - how many of your friends/relatives got sick because of any of these?

Form the statistical point of view you are making much more harm to yourself stressing yourself with a fear that something can happen, than you risk from these things happening.

There was at least one, widely reported case of a woman hit by a meteorite, yet we don't bother to carry thick armor plates all the time, doesn't make much sense.

--- End quote ---

I agree with you most of the time.

However, just a line sharing about my experience. For all kinds of reasons my food was once contaminated with all the substances I have mentioned above. Sometimes I threw the precious food away, sometimes I ate it but felt unhappy, if you were me, I think you would also feel bad to have food contaminated with all those things. I just want to learn about this issue more scientifically so that my worries can go away faster next time. Thanks for your comment I am more comfortable now

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