Associations between serum phthalates and biomarkers of reproductive function in 589 adult men

Associations of urinary 5-methyl-2′-deoxycytidine and 5-hydroxymethyl-2′-deoxycytidine with phthalate exposure and semen quality in 562 Chinese adult men

“…MBP, MiBP, MEP, MMP, MEOHP and MBzP) were negatively associated with semen parameters (e.g. sperm concentration, total sperm count and sperm morphology), which was consistent with the results of previous studies (Bloom et al, 2015;Duty et al, 2003;Hauser et al, 2006;Liu et al, 2012;Specht et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2015a). Although we still do not know if DNA methylation or hydroxymethylation play any specific role in the effect of phthalates on spermatogenesis, the mediation analysis in our study showed a statistically suggestive effect (p = 0.06) of phthalate exposure on sperm morphology mediated by urinary 5mdC (SI Table S8).…”

“…Urinary metabolites of phthalates have been widely detected in different human populations Guo et al, 2011;Joensen et al, 2012). Human epidemiologic studies have reported associations between exposure to some phthalates and adverse male reproductive outcomes, including reduced sperm quality, increased sperm DNA damage, and altered serum hormone levels, although these associations are not entirely consistent (Bloom et al, 2015;Duty et al, 2003;Hauser et al, 2006;Hauser et al, 2007;Lenters et al, 2015;Joensen et al, 2012;Mendiola et al, 2012;Specht et al, 2014;Thurston et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2015aWang et al, , 2015b. In one animal exposure study, anti-androgenic effects on male reproductive development, decreased testes and epididymis weight, and increased incidences of external reproductive tract malformation in male rats were observed (Saillenfait et al, 2008).…”

Prenatal phthalate exposure and reproductive function in young men

“…In addition, the metabolite levels in serum are much lower than in urine which sets special demands on the used method. However, compared with other reports in the field, the performance of our LC/MS/MS-based analysis allowed measurement of phthalate metabolite concentrations 2-1000 times lower than previous studies on levels in serum (Frederiksen et al, 2010;Hines et al, 2009;Hogberg et al, 2008;Specht et al, 2014) or amniotic fluid (Jensen et al, 2015). These studies mostly detected MECPP (Frederiksen et al, 2010;Hines et al, 2009) and MCiOP (Frederiksen et al, 2010), at similar levels as in our study.…”

Associations of lead and cadmium with sex hormones in adult males

“…For example, we did not control for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) or phthalate exposures, which have both been identified to be inversely associated with testosterone in males (Goncharov et al, 2009;Meeker and Ferguson, 2014;Specht et al, 2014). These associations tend to be opposite in direction to the positive association between lead and testosterone this analysis identified.…”