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Exposure of children to phthalates and the impact of consumer practices in Slovakia

  • Miroslava Šidlovská EMAIL logo , Ida Petrovičová , Branislav Kolena , Tomáš Pilka , Eva Šovčíková and Tomáš Trnovec
Published/Copyright: February 23, 2017
Reviews on Environmental Health
From the journal Reviews on Environmental Health Volume 32 Issue 1-2

Abstract

Phthalates are environmental pollutants that can enter the human body by ingestion, inhalation and dermal absorption. Food constitutes the most important source of human exposure to these chemicals. The aim of our study was the biological monitoring of exposure to eight phthalate metabolites in children (n=107), 10–12 years of age, living in eastern Slovakia. Additionally, we analysed some associations between anthropometric measures, questionnaire data (i.e. eating and drinking habits, practice of personal care products) and concentrations of phthalate metabolites. Because of the short half-life of phthalates, within 24–48 h, we used 24-h recalls to assess dietary intakes. We used high-performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry for the analysis of spot urine samples to determine concentrations of phthalate metabolites mono-ethyl phthalate (MEP), mono-n-butyl phthalate, mono-iso-butyl phthalate, mono-benzyl phthalate (MBzP), mono (2-ethyl-5-hydroxyhexyl) phthalate (5OH-MEHP), mono(2-ethyl-5-oxohexyl) phthalate (5oxo-MEHP), mono-carboxy pentyl and mono (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (MEHP). We found statistically significant association between consumer practices and concentration of some phthalate metabolites, concretely consumption of milk and dairy products with MBzP and margarine with MEP (p<0.01 in both cases) and margarine with 5oxo-MEHP, hot beverages with 5OH-MEHP, baguettes and semifinished products with MEP (p<0.05 in all cases). Further, we found relationship between use of cosmetic products and phthalate concentrations, nail polish application and MEP and use of body lotion and MEHP (p<0.05 in both cases). We concluded that consumer practices (including eating and drinking habits and personal care) represent the substantial source of phthalate exposure in Slovak children.

Keywords: food packaging; personal care; phthalate exposure

  1. Author Statement

  2. Research funding: This study was supported by project APVV-0571-12 and project UGA VIII/28/2016. The authors thank Michaela Földesiova for her excellent technical assistance. Conflict of interest statement: The authors state no conflict of interest. Informed consent: Participation was voluntary and there was a possibility to withdraw participation at any time during the study. The legal representatives of all children gave written informed consent before the study to provide samples of urine, to complete questionnaires and to allow the researchers to take measurements and also to process their personal records and data. Ethical approval: The research related to human use complied with all the relevant national regulations and institutional policies and was performed in accordance to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki. The study received an approval from the Institutional Review Board of the Slovak Medical University.

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Received: 2016-7-22
Accepted: 2017-1-12
Published Online: 2017-2-23
Published in Print: 2017-3-1

©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorial
  3. Environmental challenges in Central and Eastern Europe
  4. Mini Reviews
  5. The CEECHE: a practical approach for reducing exposures and disease outcomes in Central and Eastern Europe
  6. Perinatal health in the Danube region – new birth cohort justified
  7. Building multi-country collaboration on watershed management: lessons on linking environment and public health from the Western Balkans
  8. An open-sourced statistical application for identifying complex toxicological interactions of environmental pollutants
  9. Air exchange rates and alternative vapor entry pathways to inform vapor intrusion exposure risk assessments
  10. Review Articles
  11. Sustainable exposure prevention through innovative detection and remediation technologies from the NIEHS Superfund Research Program
  12. Future of environmental research in the age of epigenomics and exposomics
  13. Linking childhood allergic asthma phenotypes with endotype through integrated systems biology: current evidence and research needs
  14. Impact of nutrition on pollutant toxicity: an update with new insights into epigenetic regulation
  15. Environmental PAH exposure and male idiopathic infertility: a review on early life exposures and adult diagnosis
  16. The association of peripubertal serum concentrations of organochlorine chemicals and blood lead with growth and pubertal development in a longitudinal cohort of boys: a review of published results from the Russian Children’s Study
  17. Epigenomic reprogramming in inorganic arsenic-mediated gene expression patterns during carcinogenesis
  18. Emerging roles of xenobiotic detoxification enzymes in metabolic diseases
  19. Recent advances on iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles as sorbents of organic pollutants in water and wastewater treatment
  20. Review of heavy metal accumulation on aquatic environment in Northern East Mediterrenean Sea part I: some essential metals
  21. Original Articles
  22. Sensemaking, stakeholder discord, and long-term risk communication at a US Superfund site
  23. Valuing environmental health for informed policy-making
  24. How serious are health impacts in one of the most polluted regions of Central Europe?
  25. The results of interconnection of the evidence of professional exposure to genotoxic factors (regex) and cancer registry in the Czech Republic
  26. The impact of selected environmental, behavioral and psychosocial factors on schoolchildren’s somatic and mental health
  27. Markers of lipid oxidative damage among office workers exposed intermittently to air pollutants including nanoTiO2 particles
  28. Determinants of ETS exposure in a sample of Slovak pregnant women
  29. Respiratory toxicity of Fe3O4 nanoparticles: experimental study
  30. Exposure of children to phthalates and the impact of consumer practices in Slovakia
  31. Metal contamination in environmental media in residential areas around Romanian mining sites
https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2016-0028
Keywords for this article
food packaging; personal care; phthalate exposure

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorial
  3. Environmental challenges in Central and Eastern Europe
  4. Mini Reviews
  5. The CEECHE: a practical approach for reducing exposures and disease outcomes in Central and Eastern Europe
  6. Perinatal health in the Danube region – new birth cohort justified
  7. Building multi-country collaboration on watershed management: lessons on linking environment and public health from the Western Balkans
  8. An open-sourced statistical application for identifying complex toxicological interactions of environmental pollutants
  9. Air exchange rates and alternative vapor entry pathways to inform vapor intrusion exposure risk assessments
  10. Review Articles
  11. Sustainable exposure prevention through innovative detection and remediation technologies from the NIEHS Superfund Research Program
  12. Future of environmental research in the age of epigenomics and exposomics
  13. Linking childhood allergic asthma phenotypes with endotype through integrated systems biology: current evidence and research needs
  14. Impact of nutrition on pollutant toxicity: an update with new insights into epigenetic regulation
  15. Environmental PAH exposure and male idiopathic infertility: a review on early life exposures and adult diagnosis
  16. The association of peripubertal serum concentrations of organochlorine chemicals and blood lead with growth and pubertal development in a longitudinal cohort of boys: a review of published results from the Russian Children’s Study
  17. Epigenomic reprogramming in inorganic arsenic-mediated gene expression patterns during carcinogenesis
  18. Emerging roles of xenobiotic detoxification enzymes in metabolic diseases
  19. Recent advances on iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles as sorbents of organic pollutants in water and wastewater treatment
  20. Review of heavy metal accumulation on aquatic environment in Northern East Mediterrenean Sea part I: some essential metals
  21. Original Articles
  22. Sensemaking, stakeholder discord, and long-term risk communication at a US Superfund site
  23. Valuing environmental health for informed policy-making
  24. How serious are health impacts in one of the most polluted regions of Central Europe?
  25. The results of interconnection of the evidence of professional exposure to genotoxic factors (regex) and cancer registry in the Czech Republic
  26. The impact of selected environmental, behavioral and psychosocial factors on schoolchildren’s somatic and mental health
  27. Markers of lipid oxidative damage among office workers exposed intermittently to air pollutants including nanoTiO2 particles
  28. Determinants of ETS exposure in a sample of Slovak pregnant women
  29. Respiratory toxicity of Fe3O4 nanoparticles: experimental study
  30. Exposure of children to phthalates and the impact of consumer practices in Slovakia
  31. Metal contamination in environmental media in residential areas around Romanian mining sites
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