Toxicological Effect of Endocrine Disruptors: a focus on the relationship between health and environment
Emerging pollutants; Endocrine Disruptors; Mutagenicity; Perception of environmental risk
The increasing pollution of natural resources is a socio-environmental problem that has been gaining prominence over the years. One of the attitudes that contribute to the increasing environmental degradation is the indiscriminate use of medicines and their inadequate disposal, which in turn continue in effluents even after the treatments received and return to aquatic matrices. Residues of drugs of hormonal origin cause concern due to their ability to interfere with the endocrine system of exposed organisms. These factors can be aggravated by ignorance, individual and collective awareness and management problems. The aim of this study was to analyze the perception of environmental risk of undergraduate students in relation to their habits of use and disposal of medications, highlighting contraceptives, especially Levonorgestrel, active ingredient of the morning-after pill. The second objective of this study aimed to evaluate and compare the cytotoxic and mutagenic potential of the hormones Estrona and Levonorgestrel. The results show that the studied population regularly uses drugs for various types of treatments, but the consumption of analgesics and anti-inflammatory drugs and contraceptives is evidenced. All students are concerned about some aspect related to the environment, although 70% discard their drug residues out of use or overdue in common waste and, of this percentage, most consider that their disposal option is inadequate. Mutagenicity assays do not have conclusive data and this will be presented at the time of the dissertation defense. Therefore, the work carried out shows that it is necessary to have strategies to reduce inadequate habits of medication use, educate society and future professionals, as well as adopt and strengthen the alternatives less impacting the environment, in this case the correct destination in specialized collection stations.