Distribution of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers in Human Umbilical Cord Serum, Paternal Serum, Maternal Serum, Placentas, and Breast Milk from Madrid Population, Spain

Abstract

Median concentration of total PBDEs in maternal serum, paternal serum, umbilical cord serum, and breast milk samples were 12, 12, 17, and 6.1 ng/g lipid weight (lw) in Vallecas and 9.7, 12, 15, and 5.5 ng/g lw in Getafe. The median value found in placentas was 1.9 ng/g lw (in Vallecas). BDE 47 was the predominant congener in serum samples (maternal, paternal, and umbilical cord), while BDE 209 was predominant in placenta and breast milk samples. BDEs 196 and 197 were detected in most of the placenta and breast milk samples. The results show that PBDEs, like other POPs, can cross the placenta barrier, although the speed of the process seems to differ for each PBDE congeners. The total PBDE concentrations found in this study are consistent with research reported elsewhere. They are in the same range as those recently reported by other European and Asian studies and lower than those conducted in the U.S.A. No significant differences were found (p > 0.05) between regions, sexes, and ages, while statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) were found between maternal serum, umbilical cord serum, and breast milk samples. The presence of PBDEs in cord blood and placenta samples indicates that there is prenatal exposure of PBDEs, which could continue after birth via breast milk.

Levels and congener profiles of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in breast milk from Shanghai: Implication for exposure route of higher brominated BDEs

“…These concentrations are comparable to those reported in human milk in Nanjing (Sudaryanto et al, 2008b), Tianjin (Zhu et al, 2009b) and Guangzhou (Bi et al, 2006), suggesting that the mean level reported here may represent the background levels of lower brominated BDEs (from tri-to heptaBDEs) in Chinese human milk. Compared with the general populations in other countries (Table 2), the PBDEs concentrations in milk in this study fell within the same range as those reported in Asian countries such as Japan (Eslami et al, 2006;Inoue et al, 2006), Indonesia (Sudaryanto et al, 2008a), Korea (Haraguchi et al, 2009), and the Philippines (Malarvannan et al, 2009), and from European countries such as Norway (Thomsen et al, 2010), France (Antignac et al, 2009), Spain (Gömara et al, 2007) and Belgium (Colles et al, 2008). The concentrations found in our study were slightly lower than those in the United Kingdom (Kalantzi et al, 2004) and Australia (Toms et al, 2007), and were one order of magnitude lower than those reported in the United States (Schecter et al, 2003).…”

“…These results were similar to those in other studies concerning the general population (Table 2) in France (58%) (Antignac et al, 2009) and Nanjing, Eastern China (65%) (Sudaryanto et al, 2008b). Our findings were also similar to the profiles in human milk obtained from the general population in Madrid, Spain (Gömara et al, 2007), Japan , the Philippines (Malarvannan et al, 2009) and Indonesia (Sudaryanto et al, 2008a), where a relatively higher proportion of PBDEs from octa-to deca-BDEs were detected.…”

“…BDE-47 was the dominant congener, followed by either BDE-99 or BDE-153. However, recent studies from France (Antignac et al, 2009), Spain (Gömara et al, 2007), and China (Sudaryanto et al, 2008b) found relatively higher concentrations of octa-to deca-BDEs in milk, accounting for more than 50% of total PBDEs. These results seem to imply that the exposure route of PBDEs might differ from traditional persistent organic pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organic chlorinated pesticides (OCPs), where diet was considered the major exposure route (Zhao et al, 2009).…”

Body burdens of polybrominated diphenyl ethers in childbearing-aged women at an intensive electronic-waste recycling site in China

“…In this study, comparatively high levels of PBDEs were found in placenta, confirming that PBDEs can cross the placenta (Gomara et al 2007). The estimated daily intakes (EDI) of PBDEs by infants via breastfeeding were determined, as follows:…”

“…Deca-BDE is the predominant BFR used in China, amounting to 30,000 metric tons in 2005 (Zou et al 2007). Other studies have confirmed the presence of BDE-209 in the human body, e.g., serum (Qu et al 2007) and hair samples (Zhao et al 2008) from e-waste workers in China and placenta and milk samples from the general population of Spain (Gomara et al 2007) 3.3 Correlations among the three types of human specimens Studies on the relationships between concentrations of PBDEs in human hair and internal tissues are, to our knowledge, not available. Significant positive correlations were found only among the three types of TZ samples, Hair (n=5) Milk (n=5) Placenta (n=5) Hair (n=3) Milk ( ND not detected *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p≦0.001 regarding concentrations of total PBDEs and lower-BDEs (di-to hexa-BDEs) (r=0.998 and p<0.0001 for hair and milk; r=0.995 and p<0.0001 for hair and placenta; r= 0.999 and p<0.0001 for milk and placenta).…”