Biomonitoring and Elimination of Perfluorinated Compounds and Polychlorinated Biphenyls through Perspiration: Blood, Urine, and Sweat Study

Abstract

Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) are man-made organofluorine chemicals manufactured and marketed for their stain-resistant properties. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are anthropogenic organochlorine compounds previously used in various industrial and chemical applications prior to being banned in the Western world in the 1970s. Both PFCs and PCBs are persistent contaminants within the human organism and both have been linked to adverse health sequelae. Data is lacking on effective means to facilitate clearance of PFCs and PCBs from the body. Methods. Blood, urine, and sweat were collected from 20 individuals (10 healthy participants and 10 participants with assorted health problems) and analyzed for PFCs and PCBs using high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Results. Some individual PCB congeners, but not all, were released into sweat at varying concentrations. None of the PFCs found in serum testing appeared to be excreted efficiently into perspiration. Conclusions. Induced perspiration may have some role in facilitating elimination of selected PCBs. Sweat analysis may be helpful in establishing the existence of some accrued PCBs in the human body. Sweating does not appear to facilitate clearance of accrued PFHxS (perfluorohexane sulfonate), PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate), or PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), the most common PFCs found in the human body.

Physiology of sweat gland function: The roles of sweating and sweat composition in human health

“…In a series of studies, Genuis et al [311][312][313][316][317][318] measured the concentration of environmental toxicants in the blood, sweat, and urine of humans. The overall finding of these studies was that many chemicals, including persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, bisphenol A (BPA), and phthalate are excreted in sweat.…”

“…First, many of these studies used sweat collection methods that are susceptible to surface contamination and sweat evaporation, which would artificially increase the concentration of toxicants measured in sweat samples. For instance, in most of these studies [311][312][313][314][316][317][318], sweat was collected by the subjects on their own (uncontrolled, unsupervised), from any site on their body, by scraping sweat from the skin surface with a stainless steel spatula into a glass jar. With these methods, it is probable that sweat samples were tainted with sebum secretions.…”

“…Scraping methods increase the likelihood of skin surface (epidermal cells) contamination because scraped sweat contains 4-10x more lipid than clean sweat [319]; potentially explaining the high concentrations of some the of lipophilic toxicants in sweat. Furthermore, the method of sweat stimulation (exercise, sauna) and timing (with respect to how long sweating had commenced before collection) were not controlled [311][312][313][314][316][317][318]. Other studies [280,320] used the arm bag method which is also susceptible to skin surface contamination.…”

Biomonitoring of bisphenol A, triclosan and perfluorooctanoic acid in hair samples of children and adults

“…Recently, BPA and TCS have been detected in urine (Arbuckle et al, ; Philippat et al, ), amniotic fluid (Philippat et al, ; Shekhar et al, ), meconium and breast milk (Arbuckle et al, ), blood (Shekhar et al, ), hair (Lee, Kim, Kim, & Cho, ; Martín, Möder, Gaudl, Alonso, & Reemtsma, ) and nails (TCS) (Shi, Liu, Zhang, & Shao, ). PFOA has been also detected in a variety of biological samples such as amniotic fluid, blood, urine, breast milk and hair (Al‐sheyab, Al‐Qudah, & Tahboub, ; Alves, Jacobs, Vanermen, Covaci, & Voorspoels, ; Genuis, Beesoon, & Birkholz, ; Stein, Wolff, Calafat, Kato, & Engel, ).…”

Gastrointestinal Elimination of Perfluorinated Compounds Using Cholestyramine and Chlorella pyrenoidosa

“…There has been minimal study on means to specifically facilitate removal of PFCs from the human body, and recent research exploring the potential elimination of these compounds through skin depuration demonstrated a lack of success [32]. Another potential approach is to give oral agents which reduce PFC absorption in the GI tract and/or increase toxicant excretion via blocking of reabsorption of toxics in the enterohepatic pathway.…”