Environmental xenobiotic

Environmental xenobiotics are xenobiotic compounds with a biological activity that are found as pollutants in the natural environment. Environmental xenobiotics are xenobiotic compounds with a biological activity that are found as pollutants in the natural environment. Pharmaceutical drugs are chemicals used for the alteration, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of disease, health conditions or structure/function of the human body. Some pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) can enter the environment by one route or another as the parent compound or as pharmacologically active metabolites. Drugs are developed with the intention of having a beneficial biological effect on the organism to which they are administered, but many such compounds all too often pass into the environment where they may exert an unwanted biological effect. For many years PhACs have been all but ignored as environmental researchers concentrated on the well known environmentally dangerous chemicals that were/are largely used in agriculture and industry. But with increasing technology to help in the separation and identification of multiple compounds in a mixture, PhACs and their effects have received increasing attention. PhACs have not (until relatively recently) been seen as potentially toxic because regulations associated with pharmaceuticals are typically overseen by human health organizations which have limited experience with environmental issues. Nearly all categories of pharmaceuticals including pain killers (analgesics and anti-inflammatory), antibiotics (antibacterial), anticonvulsant drugs, Beta-blockers, blood lipid regulators, X-ray contrast media, cytostatic drugs (Chemotherapy), oral contraceptives, and veterinary pharmaceuticals among many others have been found in the environment.