Lu Chensheng, Toepel Kathryn, Irish Rene, Fenske Richard A, Barr Dana B, Bravo Roberto
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Environ Health Perspect. 2006 Feb;114(2):260-3. doi: 10.1289/ehp.8418.
We used a novel study design to measure dietary organophosphorus pesticide exposure in a group of 23 elementary school-age children through urinary biomonitoring. We substituted most of children's conventional diets with organic food items for 5 consecutive days and collected two spot daily urine samples, first-morning and before-bedtime voids, throughout the 15-day study period. We found that the median urinary concentrations of the specific metabolites for malathion and chlorpyrifos decreased to the nondetect levels immediately after the introduction of organic diets and remained nondetectable until the conventional diets were reintroduced. The median concentrations for other organophosphorus pesticide metabolites were also lower in the organic diet consumption days; however, the detection of those metabolites was not frequent enough to show any statistical significance. In conclusion, we were able to demonstrate that an organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposures to organophosphorus pesticides that are commonly used in agricultural production. We also concluded that these children were most likely exposed to these organophosphorus pesticides exclusively through their diet. To our knowledge, this is the first study to employ a longitudinal design with a dietary intervention to assess children's exposure to pesticides. It provides new and persuasive evidence of the effectiveness of this intervention.
我们采用了一种新颖的研究设计，通过尿液生物监测来测量一组23名小学适龄儿童的膳食有机磷农药暴露情况。在为期15天的研究期间，我们连续5天将大多数儿童的传统饮食替换为有机食品，并每天收集两份即时尿液样本，即晨尿和睡前排尿。我们发现，引入有机饮食后，马拉硫磷和毒死蜱的特定代谢物的尿液中位浓度立即降至检测不到的水平，并且在重新引入传统饮食之前一直保持检测不到。在食用有机饮食的日子里，其他有机磷农药代谢物的中位浓度也较低；然而，这些代谢物的检测频率不足以显示出任何统计学意义。总之，我们能够证明有机饮食对农业生产中常用的有机磷农药暴露具有显著且即时的保护作用。我们还得出结论，这些儿童很可能仅通过饮食接触这些有机磷农药。据我们所知，这是第一项采用纵向设计并进行饮食干预来评估儿童农药暴露情况的研究。它为这种干预措施的有效性提供了新的、有说服力的证据。
