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Phthalate exposure in association with the use of personal care products among general population from Shanghai

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Abstract

Phthalates are used in a wide variety of personal care products (PCPs) as solubilizer, denaturant or color fixative. However, there are few studies referring the correlation between phthalate exposure and PCPs use among general population in China. In this study, ten metabolites of phthalates in spot urine samples (N = 500) were quantified using ultra-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. The frequency and duration of 12 types of PCPs were collected by questionnaire survey. The associations of phthalate metabolites and PCPs use were assessed by multivariable liner regression models. Median concentration of mono-benzylphthalate (MBzP) was significantly higher among frequent users of almost all PCPs. Low molecular weight phthalates (monomethyl phthalate (MMP), mono-n-butylphthalate (MnBP) and monoisobutylphthalate (MiBP)) were significantly lower among frequent user of some rinse-off PCPs (e.g., shampoo, facial cleanser, and body wash). Meanwhile, monoethylphthalate (MEP) was positive correlated with frequently use of facial moisturizer. Mono-2-ethylhexylphthalate (MEHP) and MBzP showed a significant positive association with frequently use of body lotion. Univariate linear analyses indicated a significant decreasing trend between urinary concentrations of MMP, MnBP, and the number of rinse-off PCPs being frequently used, and a significant increasing trend between urinary MBzP and the number of leave-on products being frequently used. These findings indicated that the use of some PCPs, especially leave-on PCPs, could be a potential source of exposure to some phthalates.

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Data availability

Extra data is available by emailing to chenb@fudan.edu.cn on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all participants for their participation and kind assistance. BC contributed to the conception and study design; JQ, RD, and MW contributed to the acquisition of data; JQ, RD, and QY performed data analysis; JQ, RD, and JC contributed to the interpretation of data; JQ, RD, and BC contributed to manuscript writing, and critically revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. The guarantor is BC.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 82003412), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Grant (grant numbers 2019M651380), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Grant (grant numbers 2019T120306).

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Author notes

  1. Jin Qin and Ruihua Dong contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety of the Ministry of Education, School of Public Health, Fudan University, 138 Yixueyuan Road, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Jin Qin, Ruihua Dong, Min Wu, Yaqun Yuan, Han Zhang, Pai Meng, Meiru Zhang, Jingsi Chen, Shuguang Li & Bo Chen

Authors
  1. Jin Qin
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  2. Ruihua Dong
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  3. Min Wu
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  4. Yaqun Yuan
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  5. Han Zhang
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  7. Meiru Zhang
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  8. Jingsi Chen
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  9. Shuguang Li
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  10. Bo Chen
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Correspondence to Bo Chen.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The Ethics Committee of the School of Public Health at Fudan University approved this study. All participants gave informed consent at enrollment.

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Responsible Editor: Lotfi Aleya

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Qin, J., Dong, R., Wu, M. et al. Phthalate exposure in association with the use of personal care products among general population from Shanghai. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 28470–28478 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12375-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12375-1

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