Читать книгу Poisonous Plants and Phytochemicals in Drug Discovery - Группа авторов - Страница 46

Understanding the type and nature of phytotoxins in an environment is essential to the safety of the community. Among many other potentially harmful and toxic effects of phytotoxins, some can be fatal if ingested in very small amounts; others are irritants to the skin, eyes, and the respiratory tract and can cause more significant physiological harm with time; and yet other phytotoxins are carcinogenic. Understanding these phytotoxins can help in devising ways through which the community can avoid or effectively minimize the risks associated with each one of them or, at least, know which category they may fall in. It is imperative for environmental monitors to include phytotoxins in their various assessments, including environmental impact assessments for community projects. The incorporation of phytotoxins in environmental monitoring is said to be hampered by the high diversity of phytotoxin structures and the unavailability of reliable and well‐validated standard analytical methods [19]. This challenge can be overcome by devising standard protocols that are only feasible with the development of a sound systematic categorization of the toxins.