Abstract
Environmental exposure to organic endocrine disrupting chemicals, including dioxins, dibenzofurans, bisphenol A (BPA), and phthalates has been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We conducted a pilot monitoring study of 30 ASD cases and 10 typically developing (TD) controls ages 2–8 years from communities along the Gulf of Mexico near Alabama, which houses 14 Superfund sites, to assess the concentrations of dioxins and dibenzofurans in serum, and BPA and phthalate ester metabolites in urine. Based on General Linear Models, the lipid- or creatinine-adjusted geometric mean concentrations of the aforementioned chemicals did not differ between the ASD case and TD control groups (all p ≥ 0.27). We compared our findings to the adjusted means as reported by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, survey years 2011–2012, and found that TD controls in our study had lower BPA (59%) and MEHHP (26%) concentrations, higher MBP (50%) concentration, and comparable (<20% difference) MEP, MBZP, MEOHP, and MCPP concentrations. We also conducted a preliminary investigation of dietary exposures and found that the consumption of certain types of fish may be associated with higher OCDD concentrations, and the consumption of soft drinks and juices may be associated with lower BPA and MEOHP concentrations, respectively.
Highlights
Environmental exposure to organic endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) [1] and persistent organic pollutants [2], including dioxins [3], dibenzofurans [4], bisphenol A (BPA) [5,6], and phthalates [7,8], has been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders [9,10,11]
The Chlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins (CDDs) that were analyzed in this study belonged to the tetra-chlorinated dioxin (TCDD), pentachlorinated dioxin (PECDD), hexa-chlorinated dioxin (HXCDD), hepta-chlorinated dioxin (HPCDD), and octa-chlorinated dioxin (OCDD) groups
Of the seven dioxin congeners that were analyzed in this study, only octa-chlorinated dioxin (OCDD) was detected in 100% of the serum samples, with lipid-adjusted mean (SD) concentrations of 78.51 (2.26) pg/g for children with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 90.93 (1.50) pg/g for typically developing (TD) children (p = 0.59)
Summary
Environmental exposure to organic endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) [1] and persistent organic pollutants [2], including dioxins [3], dibenzofurans [4], bisphenol A (BPA) [5,6], and phthalates [7,8], has been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders [9,10,11]. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder whose etiology may be associated with the exposure to EDCs [3,8,10,15], either alone or through gene-environment interactions [16] and epigenetic changes [17]. Since oxidative stress is suspected to play a role in ASD etiology [20], these findings raise questions as to if through a similar mechanism, exposure to dioxins, dibenzofurans, BPA, and phthalates is associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ASD Epidemiologic studies have reported associations between urinary phthalates and phthalate metabolites with increased levels of lipid peroxidation, inflammation, and decreased levels of antioxidants [18,19], which are markers of oxidative stress.
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