Children’s Exposure to Alcohol, Tobacco, and Drugs: Long-Term Outcomes

Abstract

Epigenetics is one of the most cutting edge and revolutionary fields in the biological sciences. This review encapsulates a framework of how modifications in epigenetic adaptations provide a credible link between the alterations in gene expression and the environmental entities that might lead to disease phenotypes as it relates to children’s exposure to alcohol, tobacco and drug, and the long-term outcomes. The emerging systematic approach to understanding various long-term effects of developmental exposures adds a novel dimension to the importance of preventing the deleterious effects of environmental chemicals. This new research paradigm is challenging as it requires a multidisciplinary team of collaborative scientists that includes but is not limited to toxicologists, clinicians, and epidemiologists to keenly scrutinize viable external contributing factors in the past, as far back as each individual’s intrauterine life; the life of their parents and/or grandparents; prospective studies to define and identify early-life exposures to chemicals and nutrients and provide a new emphasis on multigenerational studies. Because epidemiological data increasingly suggest that respective individuals’ environmental exposures early in development have a role in susceptibility to disease in later life, the relevance of this biological phenomenon to human disease can inevitably be used to improve public health.