Department of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Department of Family Medicine and Occupational Medicine, Kaohsiung Chang-Gang Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Sci Rep. 2017 Jan 9;7:40283. doi: 10.1038/srep40283.
Groundwater pollution from the petrochemical industry causes serious deterioration of soil and groundwater quality and impacts on human health worldwide. However, few studies have examined the effect of residential exposure to petrochemical chlorinated hydrocarbon-contaminated groundwater on renal function impairment in humans. We conducted an ecological study to investigate the two. A polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant was located in one of the six villages, the study area, in Kaohsiung city of southwestern Taiwan. Based on the direction of groundwater flow and previous groundwater measurements of chlorinated hydrocarbons from Taiwan Environmental Protection Bureau, we divided the six villages into highly-polluted villages, moderately-polluted villages, and a non-polluted village. All inhabitants in those six villages were invited to receive free health examinations between May-June, 2010. In total, 4,432 study subjects ≥18 yrs old were analyzed. Compared to those in the non-polluted village, subjects in highly-polluted villages had 1.89- and 1.46-fold the risk of impaired estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and proteinuria (95% CI = 1.15-1.85 and 1.09-3.28, respectively) after adjusting for other covariates. Given this relative large sample size, we found that groundwater chlorinated hydrocarbon pollution can cause kidney damage in adults.
石化工业造成的地下水污染导致土壤和地下水质量严重恶化，并对全球人类健康造成影响。然而，很少有研究调查过居住在石化氯化烃污染的地下水中对人类肾功能损害的影响。我们进行了一项生态研究来调查这两个问题。在台湾高雄市的一个研究区域的六个村庄中的一个村庄里有一个聚氯乙烯（PVC）工厂。根据地下水的流向和台湾环境保护局以前对氯化烃的地下水测量结果，我们将这六个村庄划分为高度污染村庄、中度污染村庄和无污染村庄。邀请所有居住在这六个村庄的居民在 2010 年 5 月至 6 月期间接受免费健康检查。总共分析了 4432 名年龄在 18 岁及以上的研究对象。与无污染村庄的居民相比，高度污染村庄的居民估算肾小球滤过率（eGFR）受损和蛋白尿的风险分别增加了 1.89 倍和 1.46 倍（95%CI=1.15-1.85 和 1.09-3.28），在调整其他协变量后。考虑到这个相对较大的样本量，我们发现地下水氯化烃污染可能会导致成年人的肾脏损伤。
