Environmental Exposure and Health Effects of Chemical UV Filters

Abstract

More and more attention has been paid to the health effects of UV filter exposure. UV filters are extensively added to personal care products to prevent sunburn, skin aging, skin cancer, and photodegradation caused by UV filter radiation. As the most widely used UV filter, ethyl-hexyl methoxycinnamate (EHMC) is used by 90% of Chinese population. EHMC is lipophilicity, and has endocrine disruptive activity. Although EHMC is widely detected in the environment, there are few reports on human exposure and health risk assessment of EHMC worldwide. In this chapter, we review the environmental exposure and biological effects of UV filters, introduce a method for the detection of EHMC and other UV filters in human urine samples, and assess the exposure level of UV filters in school-aged children. Results show that UV filters are ubiquitous in the environment, bioaccumulation, and have endocrine disruptive effects in organism. UV filters can enter the human body through dietary and skin contact and increase the health risk. Recently, a LC-QTOF-MS method is developed for the determination of EHMC and its main metabolite 4-methoxycinnamic acid in human urine samples. This method is used to detect the exposure level of six kinds of commonly used UV filters in school-aged children. Nine metabolites of four kinds are detected in urine samples, and six of which are detected in more than 50% of urine samples, including BP-3, BP-2, BP-1, EHMC, 4′-MAP, 4-MCA, and OD-PABA. UV filter levels are higher in overweight children than normal weight children, and the exposure levels in girls are significantly higher than those in boys, suggesting that the health risk of girls exposed to UV filters is relatively high currently.