Research progress of health effect of polybrominated diphenyl ethers

Abstract

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) was one of the most common brominated flame retardants, it has been widely used in products such as furnitures, polymer and plastical material, textiles, electronic products and building materials. PBDEs have potential effect such as neurodevelopmental toxicity, reproductive toxicity, thyroid toxicity, immunological toxicity, embryo toxicity, liver toxicity, teratogenicity and potential carcinogenicity. This paper was aimed to review the environmental exposure way, current level, neurotoxicity, neurodevelopmental toxicity and reproductive toxicity of PBDEs. In recent years, PBDEs has been detected in environment, wildlife animal and human body around the world, there were the significant differences of exposure levels of PBDEs. The most abundant congener were tetra-BDE or BDE-47, hexa-BDE or BDE-153, and deca-BDE or BDE-209. Prenatal exposure to PBDEs has great impact on the infants' neurodevelopmental function, induces changes in neuropsychological developmental behavior, decreases of congnition, motivation and attention. High levels of PBDEs have positive relationship with Luteinizing hormone levels, testis disfunction and children's cryptorchidism, and have negative relationship with sperm number and testis size.