Trends of the internal phthalate exposure of young adults in Germany--follow-up of a retrospective human biomonitoring study.

The exposure of the general population to phthalates is of increasing public health concern. Variations in the internal exposure of the population are likely, because the amounts, distribution and application characters of the phthalate use change over time. Estimating the chronological sequences of the phthalate exposure, we performed a retrospective human biomonitoring study by investigating the metabolites of the five most prominent phthalates in urine.

The potential of spatial information in human biomonitoring by example of two German environmental epidemiology studies.

This study aimed at statistically investigating the association between the internal exposure of children and young adults to uranium (U) and epidemiologically relevant external determinants of exposure. The investigation was performed with data from two studies within the framework of the German health-related environmental monitoring program: The German Environmental Survey for Children (GerES IV) conducted by the Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt) with data on 1,780 children 3-14 years of age and their home environment and the German Environmental Specimen Bank (ESB, section: human specimens) with data on 2,253 students 20-29 years of age. Both studies provided data on the U levels in human urine for all probands.

Fetal exposure to phthalates--a pilot study.

The fetus is considered to be the most sensitive stage of life to the potential developmental and reproductive toxicity of the phthalates. But, data on human fetal exposure to phthalates is still scarce. In this pilot study we collected 11 pairs of amniotic fluid (AF) and corresponding maternal urine (MU) samples during Caesarean section and analysed them for several phthalate metabolites by LC-MS/MS.

Rapid evaluation of human biomonitoring data using pattern recognition systems.

Assessing human biomonitoring data often necessitates dealing with fragmentary prior knowledge and a complex set of variables. A procedure for explorative data analysis via decision-tree analysis was undertaken to obtain high-level descriptive summary information on human exposure on a timely basis. This study is based on a subset of monitoring data of the Environmental Specimen Bank for Human Tissues within the German Environmental Specimen Bank (n sigma: 2401: 42/58% males/females; 34/66% born in East/West Germany).

Preliminary observations on perfluorinated compounds in plasma samples (1977-2004) of young German adults from an area with perfluorooctanoate-contaminated drinking water.

In May 2006, a serious environmental contamination with perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) became evident in a rural area of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) (Region Sauerland), Germany. In autumn 2006, we performed a human biomonitoring study in which a 4-8-fold increase in perfluorooctanoate (PFOA)-plasma concentrations of children, their mothers and men living in Arnsberg (District Hochsauerlandkreis, NRW) was observed compared with a reference population. The exposure was clearly related to the consumption of PFOA-contaminated tap water.

Internal phthalate exposure over the last two decades--a retrospective human biomonitoring study.

In a retrospective human biomonitoring study we analyzed 24h urine samples taken from the German Environmental Specimen Bank for Human Tissues (ESBHum), which were collected from 634 subjects (predominantly students, age range 20-29 years, 326 females, 308 males) in 9 years between 1988 and 2003 (each n >or= 60), for the concentrations of primary and/or secondary metabolites of di-n-butyl phthalate (DnBP), di-iso-butyl phthalate (DiBP), butylbenzyl phthalate (BBzP), di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) and di-iso-nonyl phthalate (DiNP). Based on the urinary metabolite excretion we estimated daily intakes of the parent phthalates and investigated the chronological course of the phthalate exposure. In over 98% of the urine samples metabolites of all five phthalates were detectable indicating a ubiquitous exposure of the German population to all five phthalates throughout the last 20 years.

The Environmental Specimen Bank for Human Tissues as part of the German Environmental Specimen Bank.

The German Environmental Specimen Bank for Human Tissues (ESBHum) as part of the German Environmental Specimen Bank (ESB) focuses on documenting and assessing trends of human exposure via real-time monitoring of body burden and long-term storage of samples under stable deep freezing conditions (-150 degrees C) for later retrospective analyses. Real-time monitoring is performed after completing sampling processes of one year and covers actually 20 inorganic and 5 organic substances. While concentrations of several substances, e.