Assessment of Endocrine Disruptor Exposure in Hospital Professionals Using Hair and Urine Analyses: An Awareness Campaign.

BACKGROUND: In 2021, French public authorities initiated the fourth National Environmental Health Plan to prevent environment-related health risks. This plan primarily focuses on the sensitization of health professionals and health care institutions. Endocrine disruptors (EDs) are environmental factors associated with several adverse health effects, such as reproductive disorders, obesity, and cancer. This study aimed to conduct an awareness campaign among professionals at a general hospital center on the risks related to EDs. METHODS: Hospital professionals were directly involved in this study, and urine and hair samples were collected to determine bisphenol and paraben exposure levels. Analyses were performed using validated liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry methods, enabling the simultaneous determination of bisphenols and parabens. A questionnaire on lifestyle habits was distributed to assess its relationship with the exposure profiles. Nineteen professionals were recruited for the study. RESULTS: Bisphenol A was detected in 95% of the urine samples, and the chlorinated derivatives of bisphenol A were between 16% and 63%. parabens showed detection frequencies between 37% and 100%, and methylparaben was quantified at an average concentration of 0.45 ± 0.46 ng/mL. In hair samples, bisphenols A, F, and S were detected at 95%-100%, chlorinated derivatives of bisphenol A were detected at 37%-68%, and parabens were detected at 100%. CONCLUSIONS: This awareness campaign may encourage health care institutions to adopt a policy of reducing endocrine disruptor exposure among their patients and professionals, who could be educated regarding the risks associated with EDs. Conducting a multicenter study to refine the results herein and establish a dynamic to prevent endocrine disruptor and environmental risks in health care systems would be valuable.

Analytical method for the biomonitoring of bisphenols and parabens by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry in human hair.

Bisphenols and parabens are endocrine disruptors families widely used in daily life. They are known to be linked to numerous pathologies such as reproductive disorders, obesity, breast cancer, hypertension and asthma. Biomonitoring is an essential tool for assessing population exposure to environmental pollutants. Blood and urine are the main matrices used in human biomonitoring. However, they are not suitable to evaluate long-term exposure to endocrine disruptors with a short elimination half-life such as parabens or phenols. Hair appears to be an interesting alternative matrix allowing a wide window of exposure due to an accumulation of xenobiotics during hair growth. This study presents the development and validation of a high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry for the simultaneous determination of bisphenol A, its chlorinated derivatives, bisphenol F, bisphenol S and parabens in human hair. An optimised sample preparation based on acidic hydrolysis followed by liquid-liquid extraction was performed, before an analysis by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry in multiple reaction monitoring mode. To validate the method, recognized bioanalytical guidelines were used and calibration and quality control samples were prepared in human hair samples. Linearities were over 0.996 in the whole range of concentrations. Trueness and precision were demonstrated for each target analyte with intra-day and inter-day bias values ranging from 86 % to 118 % and relative standard deviation values ranging from 0 % to 19 %. At the same time, limits of quantification were set at 0.25 ng/g for bisphenol A and parabens, 0.05 ng/g for bisphenols F and S and 0.00625 ng/g for the chlorinated derivatives of bisphenol A. This reliable method was applied to hair samples taken from hospital professionals and allowed the quantification of these endocrine disruptors in this population. Chlorinated derivatives of bisphenol A were quantified here in hair for the first time.

Impact of perinatal environmental health education intervention on exposure to endocrine disruptors during pregnancy-PREVED study: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: The suspected or actual effects on health of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDC) and their ubiquitous presence in everyday life justify the implementation of health promotion interventions. These interventions should ideally be applied during critical windows like pregnancy. Perinatal environmental health education interventions may help to reduce EDC exposure during pregnancy. METHODS/DESIGN: PREVED (Pregnancy, PreVention, Endocrine Disruptors) is an open-label randomized controlled trial assessing the impact of environmental health education intervention on EDC exposure during pregnancy. Inclusion, consent, and randomization take place during the first trimester. The participants are randomly allocated into three groups: (i) control group (information leaflet on EDCs), (ii) intervention group in neutral location (information leaflet and workshops in a meeting room), and (iii) intervention group in contextualized location (information leaflet and workshops in a real apartment). Workshops are organized between the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Main outcome is the percentage of participants who reported consuming manufactured/industrial food. Secondary outcomes are as follows: (i) psycho-social dimensions, (ii) EDC concentrations in urine, (iii) EDC concentration in colostrum, and (iv) percentage of participants who reported consuming paraben-free personal care products. DISCUSSION: PREVED is a ground-breaking intervention research project dedicated to perinatal environmental health education that aims to identify pollutant sources in daily life and to offer accessible and realistic alternative solutions, by promoting the sharing of know-how and experience in a positive and non-alarmist approach. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov : NCT03233984 (current status: ongoing). Retrospectively registered on 31 July 2017 ( https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03233984 ) because when the first participant was enrolled in this non-drug intervention, ClinicalTrials.gov was centered in therapeutic trials. The World Health Organization Trial Registration Data Set is in Additional file 1.

Perinatal Environmental Health Education Intervention to Reduce Exposure to Endocrine Disruptors: The PREVED Project.

Environmental health promotion interventions may reduce endocrine disruptor (ED) exposure. The PREVED (PREgnancy, preVention, Endocrine Disruptors) project was developed to improve knowledge, to enhance risk perception, and to change exposure behavior. Our objective was to present the phases of the PREVED project using the RE-AIM method. PREVED intervention consisted of three workshops during pregnancy. Reach, adoption, and implementation phases were assessed with qualitative studies. Efficacy study consisted of a three-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT) on 268 pregnant women: (i) control group (leaflet), (ii) intervention group in neutral location, (iii) intervention group in contextualized location. The main outcome was the percentage evolution of participants who reported consuming canned food. Secondary outcomes were evolution of psycho-social scores, evolution of ED presence in urine, and ED presence in colostrum. The intervention adoption was centered on upper-privileged women, but implementation assessment showed that key features (highly practical intervention) seemed to be carried out and had initiated some behavior changes. A total of 268 pregnant women participated in the intervention and 230 in a randomized controlled trial (control group: 86 and intervention groups: 172). We found no significant differences in consumption of canned food and in percentage of women having a decrease of bisphenol A or parabens in urine, but we found a significant increase in the evolution of risk perception score and overall psychosocial score in intervention groups (respectively: +15.73 control versus +21.03 intervention, p = 0.003 and +12.39 versus +16.20, p = 0.02). We found a significant difference in percentage of women with butylparaben detection between control group and intervention groups (13% versus 3%, p = 0.03). PREVED intervention is the first intervention research dedicated to perinatal environmental health education in France. By sharing know-how/experience in a positive non-alarmist approach, it improved risk perception, which is key to behavior change, aiming to reduce perinatal ED exposure. Including women in precarious situations remains a major issue.

Overexposure to Bisphenol A and Its Chlorinated Derivatives of Patients with End-Stage Renal Disease during Online Hemodiafiltration.

The health safety conditions governing the practice of online hemodiafiltration (OL-HDF) do not yet incorporate the risks related to the presence of endocrine disruptors such as bisphenol A (BPA). The aim of this study was to assess, for the first time, the exposure to BPA but also to its chlorinated derivatives (ClxBPA) (100 times more estrogenic than BPA) during OL-HDF. We demonstrated that BPA is transmitted by the different medical devices used in OL-HDF: ultrafilters, dialysis concentrate cartridges (and not only dialyzers, as previously described). Moreover, BPA has been found in dialysis water as well as in ultrapure dialysate and replacement fluid due to contamination of water coming from municipal network. Indeed, due to contaminations provided by both ultrafilters and water, high levels of BPA were determined in the infused replacement fluid (1033 ng.L-1) from the beginning of the session. Thus, our results demonstrate that dialysis water must be considered as an important exposure source to endocrine disruptors, especially since other micropollutants such as ClxBPA have also been detected in dialysis fluids. While assessment of the impact of this exposure remains to be done, these new findings should be taken into account to assess exposure risks in end-stage renal disease patients.

Chlorinated and brominated bisphenol A derivatives: Synthesis, characterization and determination in water samples.

Bisphenol A (BPA) has been used in the plastics industry for several decades. During the treatment of drinking water with chlorine reagent, the formation of chlorinated derivatives of BPA (ClxBPA) but also bromoBPA and bromochloroBPA is to be expected. Some of these compounds are considered to have an estrogenic effect and could induce major risks for human health by targeting different organs and systems in the body. In this paper, we describe the synthesis of chloro- and bromobisphenol A (ClxBPA, BrxBPA, BrxClxBPA)and their analytical characterization. These derivatives could be used as analytical standards in LC-MS/MS or evaluated in in vitro biological tests for their potential as endocrine disruptors. In this study, we evaluated the presence of BPA, ClxBPA in a pilot study from water samples. Range values found for BPA, ClxBPA were respectively 2.8-4169.3 ng/L and 0.8-11.3 ng/L.