Phthalate Metabolites, Consumer Habits and Health Effects
1
Institute of Environmental Health, Center for Public Health, Medical University Vienna, Kinderspitalgasse 15, Vienna 1090, Austria
2
Environmental Agency Austria, Spittelauer Lände 5, Vienna 1090, Austria
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Katherine P. Theall and Carolyn C. Johnson
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2016, 13(7), 717; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13070717
Received: 14 May 2016 / Revised: 8 July 2016 / Accepted: 13 July 2016 / Published: 15 July 2016
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Influences on Maternal and Child Health)
Phthalates are multifunctional chemicals used in a wide variety of consumer products. The aim of this study was to investigate whether levels of urinary phthalate metabolites in urine samples of Austrian mothers and their children were associated with consumer habits and health indicators. Within an Austrian biomonitoring survey, urine samples from 50 mother-child pairs of five communities (two-stage random stratified sampling) were analysed. The concentrations of 14 phthalate metabolites were determined, and a questionnaire was administered. Monoethyl phthalate (MEP), mono-n-butyl phthalate (MnBP), mono-isobutyl phthalate (MiBP), monobenzyl phthalate (MBzP), mono-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (MEHP), mono-(2-ethyl-5-hydroxyhexyl) phthalate (5OH-MEHP), mono-(2-ethyl-5-oxohexyl) phthalate (5oxo-MEHP), mono-(5-carboxy-2-ethylpentyl) phthalate (5cx-MEPP), and 3-carboxy-mono-propyl phthalate (3cx-MPP) could be quantified in the majority of samples. Significant correlations were found between the use of hair mousse, hair dye, makeup, chewing gum, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles and the diethyl phthalate (DEP) metabolite MEP. With regard to health effects, significant associations of MEP in urine with headache, repeated coughing, diarrhoea, and hormonal problems were observed. MBzP was associated with repeated coughing and MEHP was associated with itching.
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Keywords:
human biomonitoring; urinary phthalate metabolites; consumer products; mothers; children; health effects; Austria
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Wallner, P.; Kundi, M.; Hohenblum, P.; Scharf, S.; Hutter, H.-P. Phthalate Metabolites, Consumer Habits and Health Effects. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2016, 13, 717.
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