Biological and Toxicological responses to dioxins exposures

After the II Word War, the chemical based industrial revolution generated a wide and global contamination due to the release in the environment of thousand of compounds without an adequate knowledge of their environmental biotransformation and their toxic effect on the living matter. Recently, it has been found that a lot of these compounds and/or their relative by-products are persistent environmental contaminants associated with undesirable long-term effects. At present many questions have to be clarified with particular reference to lipophilic polialogenated compounds, such as polichloro-dibenzo-dioxins (PCDD), polichloro-dibenzo-furans (PCDF) and polichloro-biphenyls (PCB). These compounds accumulate up the food chain and humans can reach relative high concentration in their body with a consequent risk for health. In this paper we discuss the recent aspects of both biological and toxicological aspects related to the dioxins exposure.