- Aerobic
Growing, living, or occurring in the presence of molecular oxygen; for example, bacteria that require oxygen to survive.
- Anaerobic
Growing, living, or occurring in the absence of molecular oxygen.
- Beluga whale fat
Fat of the white whale, Delphinapterus leucas; the fat is commonly called blubber.
- Body burden
The total amount of a chemical, metal, or radioactive substance present at any time after absorption in the body of a human or animal.
- Brominated
Combined or saturated with bromine or any of its compounds.
- Carcinogen
An agent capable of initiating development of malignant tumors; may be a chemical, a form of electromagnetic radiation, or an inert solid body.
- Chlorinated
Any organic chemical that includes chlorine atoms; chlorinated organic compounds, along with other halogenated organics, have been implicated in health risks such as cancer, endocrine system disruption, birth defects, compromised immune systems, and reduced fertility.
- Congener
One of two or more compounds of the same kind with respect to classification.
- De novo
Anew; often applied to particular biochemical pathways in which metabolites are newly biosynthesized (e.g., de novo purine biosynthesis).
- Dose
A quantity to be administered at one time, such as a specified amount of medication.
- Epidemiology
The study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states and events in populations and the control of health problems; the study of epidemic disease.
- Exposure
The condition of being subjected to the effects of a substance, such as infectious agents, that may have a harmful effect.
- Genotoxin
A toxin (poisonous substance) that harms the body by damaging DNA molecules, causing mutations that may lead to tumors or neoplasms.
- Halogenated
refers to a chemical compound or mixture that contains halogen atoms; halogen refers to those elements in the seventeenth column of the periodic table: fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and astatine.
- Heterogeneous
Not of uniform composition, quality, or structure.
- Hydrolysis
The splitting of a compound into fragments by the addition of water, the hydroxyl group being incorporated in one fragment and the hydrogen atom in the other.
- Immunologic
Pertaining to immunology, a subfield of biology that deals with the study of antigens and the immune process and how humans and higher animals fight off disease.
- Isotope dilution
A technique using radioactive tracers that can be used to determine the amount of a single substance in a mixture.
- Lactation
The period of the secretion of milk.
- Lipophilic
An element that has an affinity for lipid.
- Muktuk
The skin and underlying fat (blubber) layer of a whale.
- Narwhal mattak
The skin and underlying fat (blubber) layer of the whale Monodon monoceros. Mattak is commonly used as the dialect representation of muktuk in Baffin Inuktitut language.
- Neurobehavior
Neurological status as assessed by observation of behavior.
- Neurodevelopment
Development of the central and peripheral nervous systems starting at conception and going through the life span of an organism.
- Persistent organic pollutant
Chemical substance that persists in the environment, bioaccumulates through the food web, and poses a risk of causing adverse effects to human health and to the environment.
- Photolysis
Light induced cleavage of a chemical bond, as in the process of photosynthesis.
- Relative risk
Rate of the outcome of interest in a population compared with the rate in the reference population.
- Temporal
Pertaining to time; limited as to time.
- Toxicity
The quality of being poisonous, especially the degree of virulence of a toxic microbe or of a poison.
- Toxicokinetic modeling
The time course of disposition (absorption, distribution, biotransformation, and excretion) of xenobiotics (foreign chemicals to which organisms are exposed) in the whole organism.
- Tropospheric
Pertaining to the lower layer of the earth's atmosphere in which the change of temperature with height is relatively large; it is the region where clouds form, convection is active, and mixing is continuous and more or less complete.
- Vapor phase
Phase when substances transition from a liquid state to gaseous state through the breaking of molecular bonds.
- Volatile
Readily vaporizable at a low temperature.
Publication Details
Copyright
Publisher
National Academies Press (US), Washington (DC)
NLM Citation
Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on the Implications of Dioxin in the Food Supply. Dioxins and Dioxin-like Compounds in the Food Supply: Strategies to Decrease Exposure. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2003. GLOSSARY.