Biomonitoring of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the urine of lactating mothers: Urinary levels, association with lifestyle factors, and risk assessment.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are pollutants produced during incomplete combustion of organic matter and several industrial processes. Humans can be exposed to PAHs through ingestion of food, inhalation of tobacco smoke or polluted air, and dermal contact, causing immunologic, developmental, and reproductive problems. In the present research, eleven metabolites of PAHs were analyzed in the urine of 110 lactating women living in Spain (2015). PAH metabolites were extracted from the urine samples by liquid-liquid extraction and their determination was performed by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. In addition, information on lifestyle and dietary habits of the participants was collected using a questionnaire. All the PAH metabolites were detected in more than 70% of the samples, except for 3-hydroxybenzo(a)pyrene which was detected in less than 1% of the samples. The highest urinary levels were found for naphthalene metabolites, with geometric means of 0.8 (1-hydroxynaphthalene) and 7.1 ng ml-1 (2-hydroxynaphthalene). The statistical analysis showed that smoking status, as well as the ingestion of certain food groups (vegetables, cereals, oils and fats, smoked fish and coffee), were the main influencing factors of exposure to PAHs. The estimated daily intake (EDI) was calculated for naphthalene, fluorene, phenanthrene, and pyrene, ranging from 6 to 1522 ng kg-1·day-1. The non-cancer risk associated to PAH exposure was estimated, showing hazard quotients (HQs) and hazard indexes (HIs) below 1. Therefore, it did not reveal a significant health risk for Spanish women due to PAH exposure.

Risk assessment of exposure to phthalates in breastfeeding women using human biomonitoring.

In this study, we assessed the presence of 14 phthalate metabolites in the urine of 104 lactating mothers from Valencia (Spain) who took part in the human biomonitoring project BETTERMILK. Nine of the metabolites studied showed detection frequencies >80%, whereas the rest of the metabolites presented low detection frequencies (<5%). The concentrations ranged from

Biomonitoring of non-persistent pesticides in urine from lactating mothers: Exposure and risk assessment.

The aim of the present study was to assess the exposure to pesticides in urine from Spanish lactating mothers (n = 116). Six nonspecific (dialkyl phosphates) and 20 specific metabolites of organophosphate pesticides (OPs), herbicides and pyrethroids were analyzed. The most frequently detected biomarkers were diethyl phosphate, p-nitrophenol, 3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol and 3-phenoxybenzoic acid, whose geometric means were 1.9 ng·mL-1, 0.8 ng·mL-1, 1.5 ng·mL-1 and 1.4 ng·mL-1, respectively. Herbicide metabolites were the least frequently detected biomarkers with detection frequencies between 0% (2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic acid) and 22% (2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid). Multiple regression analyses showed that the closeness to a farming activity, the place of residence and the presence of garden/plants at home were some of the most important contributors to urinary levels of pesticide metabolites. Estimated daily intake (EDI), hazard quotient (HQ) and hazard index (HI) were obtained in order to interpret urinary levels of the most frequently detected pesticide metabolites in a risk assessment context. The highest EDIs were obtained for chlorpyrifos (0.40-1.14 µg·kg bw-1·day-1) and deltamethrin (0.34-4.73 µg·kg bw-1·day-1). The calculated HQ for chlorpyrifos, dimethoate, parathion and deltamethrin ranged from 0.01 to 0.47, and HI for OPs ranged from 0.09 to 0.33 showing that apparently there were low health risks due to the exposure to these pesticides in this group of Spanish breastfeeding women.

Biomonitoring of bisphenols A, F, S in human milk and probabilistic risk assessment for breastfed infants.

The present study addresses the presence of bisphenols A (BPA) and its analogs bisphenol F (BPF) and S (BPS) in milk of 120 mothers living in Valencia (Spain) and participating in the BETTERMILK project (year 2015). We also studied the factors that could influence the BPA levels and estimated the exposure and the risk for breast fed infants. The frequency of detection of total (conjugated + unconjugated) and unconjugated-BPA were 83% and 77%, with a geometric mean of 0.29 ng/mL and 0.15 ng/mL, respectively. The frequency of detection was much lower for total-BPF (22%) and total-BPS (1.1%). The place of residence of the mother and the use of personal care products showed significant association with BPA concentrations. The estimated daily intake of total-BPA for breastfed infants amounted to a geometric mean of 0.04 µg/kg bw and a 95th percentile of 1.0 µg/kg bw, below the tolerable daily intake of 4 µg/kg bw-day established by EFSA. To our knowledge, this is the largest biomonitoring study of bisphenols in human milk in Europe.

Assessment of air passive sampling uptakes for volatile organic compounds using VERAM devices.

A calibration chamber has been designed and employed for the simple and easy determination of uptake sampling rate (RS) of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from air using passive samplers. A flow of clean air was continuously spiked, at a constant VOC concentration, by the microinjection of a standard solution by means of a T-type tube. The developed system allowed the complete evaporation at room temperature of the standard solution in acetone and the air concentration of VOCs was easily controlled by the regulation of the clean air flow, the standard solution concentration and its flow. Active sampling was employed for monitoring the true concentration of the evaluated compounds inside the calibration chamber, using Tenax-filled desorption tubes and a low flow personal air sampling pump. Versatile, easy and rapid atmospheric monitor (VERAM) devices were employed for the passive sampling of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes, α-pinene, camphene, myrcene, p-cymene, and limonene from air. The RS values obtained for the passive sampling of VOCs, using the developed calibration chamber, were in the range of 1.3-16.0m3day-1 in accordance to previous calibration studies performed for VERAM samplers. The developed calibration chamber provided a continuous flow with a constant concentration of the evaluated compounds that allowed the simultaneous deployment of several samplers for a rapid establishment of RS for a passive sampler type and the easy comparison between different devices.