Associations between levels of hydroxylated PCBs and PCBs in serum of pregnant women and blood thyroid hormone levels and body size of neonates

Effects of in utero exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls, methylmercury, and polyunsaturated fatty acids on birth size

“…Concerning the exposure levels among the general population in Japan, the maternal PCB 153 level of 21.0 ng/g lipid in this study seemed to be comparable to that of 15.9 ng/g lipid (Nakamura et al, 2008) and 16.0 ng/g lipid (Hisada et al, 2014) measured in pregnant women in previous studies. Hisada et al (2014) described that no association was observed between prenatal exposure to PCBs and birth size, and the levels of PCB exposure among the general population in this study was considerably lower than that among European (Wojtyniak et al, 2010) and American populations (Hertz-Picciotto et al, 2005), in which a significant negative association with prenatal exposure to PCBs and birth size was found. Therefore, one of the reasons for the inconsistent results may be the difference in PCB exposure level.…”

“…Epidemiological studies have previously reported inconsistent findings about the effect of prenatal exposure to PCBs at background levels on birth weight: some found significant inverse associations (Patandin et al, 1998;Rylander et al, 1998;Karmaus and Zhu, 2004;Sagiv et al, 2007;Halldorsson et al, 2008;Sonneborn et al, 2008;Tan et al, 2009;Brucker-Davis et al, 2010;Papadopoulou et al, 2013), whereas others found a null or positive association (Vartiainen et al, 1998;Grandjean et al, 2001;Gladen et al, 2003;Longnecker et al, 2005;Givens et al, 2007;Khanjani and Sim, 2007;Wolff et al, 2007;Murphy et al, 2010;Lopez-Espinosa et al, 2011;Kezios et al, 2012;Lignell et al, 2013;Hisada et al, 2014). In populations exposed to relatively high MeHg levels because of high consumption of contaminated seafood or accidental poisoning, epidemiologic studies have reported that prenatal MeHg exposure can lead to harmful effects on children's health such as impaired neurobehavioral development, congenital malformations, and restriction of fetal growth (National Research Council, 2000).…”

Serum polychlorinated biphenyls and their hydroxylated metabolites are associated with demographic and behavioral factors in children and mothers

“…In other studies certain PCB congeners were positively associated with the total concentration of selected OH-PCBs in adults. 3, 17, 18, 23, 29 This may be because the major source of OH-PCBs was the metabolism of PCBs in the human body. It is unclear why children’s sera did not demonstrate a significant correlation between PCBs and OH-PCBs, however, our prior work has shown that their congener profiles are skewed toward the lower-chlorinated PCBs compared to their mothers 33, 41 and these congeners are more rapidly >metabolized.…”

“…Each congener had its own LOQ value and samples below the LOQ value were assigned a value of zero. 29, 33 The list of all 209 PCB congener LOQ values is presented in Supporting Information (SI), Table S1. All 64 OH-PCB congener LOQ values were published previously.…”

“…Moreover, studies that examine factors contributing to PCBs and OH-PCBs levels in children have been very limited, despite the emerging evidence supporting the negative health impact of PCB exposure in children. 29–32 In addition, none of the previous studies examined total PCBs concentration as the sum of concentrations of all 209 congeners; instead, focusing on common Aroclor PCB congeners. In our prior work, we demonstrated that as much as 50% of PCBs in human blood serum were PCB congeners not found in commercial mixtures.…”