Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Environmental Health Unit, P.O. Box 95, FI-70701, Kuopio, Finland.
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Environmental Health Unit, P.O. Box 95, FI-70701, Kuopio, Finland.
Chemosphere. 2020 Oct;257:127137. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.127137. Epub 2020 May 22.
Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent organic pollutants that have detrimental health effects. As people are exposed to them mainly through the diet, EU has set maximum food dioxin and PCBs levels. EFSA CONTAM Panel made new risk assessment in 2018 that lowered the tolerable weekly intake (TWI) from 14 pg-TEQ/kg bw/week to 2 pg-TEQ/kg bw/week. Critical effect was decreased semen count at the age of 18-19 years if serum total TEQ at the age of 9 years exceeded the No Observed Adverse Effect Level (NOAEL) of 7 pg/g lipid. However, it is largely unknown to what extent NOAEL is exceed in European boys currently. We thus measured PCBs from small volume of serum in 184 Finnish children 7-10 years of age. To estimate the TEQ levels of children from measured PCB levels, we used our existing human milk PCDD/F and PCB concentrations to create a hierarchical Bayesian regression model that was used to estimate TEQs from measured PCBs. For quality control (QC), three pooled blood samples from 18 to 20 year old males were measured for PCDD/Fs and PCBs, and estimated for TEQs. In QC samples measured and estimated TEQs agreed within 84%-106%. In our estimate for 7-10 year old children, PCDD/F TEQ exceeded NOAEL only in 0.5% and total TEQ in 2.7% of subjects. Risk management following the decreased TWI proposed by the CONTAM Panel should be carefully considered if total TEQ in children is already largely below the NOAEL.
多氯二苯并对二恶英和呋喃（PCDD/Fs）和多氯联苯（PCBs）是持久性有机污染物，对健康有不利影响。由于人们主要通过饮食接触到它们，欧盟设定了最大的食品中二恶英和多氯联苯的含量。2018 年，EFSA CONTAM 小组进行了新的风险评估，将可耐受每周摄入量（TWI）从 14 pg-TEQ/kg bw/week 降低至 2 pg-TEQ/kg bw/week。如果 9 岁时血清总 TEQ 超过 7 pg/g 脂质的无观察不良效应水平（NOAEL），则 18-19 岁时精液数量会减少，这是关键影响。然而，目前在欧洲男孩中，NOAEL 超过的程度在很大程度上是未知的。因此，我们测量了 184 名芬兰 7-10 岁儿童的小体积血清中的多氯联苯。为了根据测量的多氯联苯水平估计儿童的 TEQ 水平，我们使用现有的人乳 PCDD/F 和 PCB 浓度创建了一个分层贝叶斯回归模型，该模型用于从测量的 PCB 中估计 TEQ。为了进行质量控制（QC），我们测量了三个来自 18 至 20 岁男性的混合血液样本中的 PCDD/Fs 和 PCBs，并对其 TEQs 进行了估计。在 QC 样本中，测量值和估计值的 TEQs 相差在 84%-106%之间。在我们对 7-10 岁儿童的估计中，只有 0.5%的儿童的 PCDD/F TEQ 超过了 NOAEL，只有 2.7%的儿童的总 TEQ 超过了 NOAEL。如果儿童的总 TEQ 已经大大低于 NOAEL，应仔细考虑 CONTAM 小组提出的降低 TWI 后的风险管理。
