School of Medicine, Jiaxing University, 118 Jiahang Road, Jiaxing, 314001, China.
The Second People's Hospital of Luqiao District, Taizhou, 317200, China.
Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2020 Aug;229:113580. doi: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2020.113580. Epub 2020 Jul 14.
Perinatal exposure to dioxins affects steroid hormone synthesis. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the associations between perinatal exposure to dioxins and serum steroid hormone levels in preschool-aged children from an e-waste recycling region in China. In the present study, we enrolled 50 pairs of mothers and infants from the Taizhou, Luqiao region in 2015. Of the 50 pairs of mothers and infants, 42 pairs participated in this study when the children were 4 years old. We measured breast milk dioxin concentrations using high-resolution gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Additionally, we used liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to measure the concentrations of progesterone, testosterone, androstenedione (A-dione), and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) in serum samples from the 4-year-old children. We used multivariate linear regressions to assess the associations between dioxin congeners and steroid hormones. Results were reported as beta estimates and 95% confidence intervals by bootstrapping. We observed sex-related differences between breast milk dioxins and serum steroid hormone levels in 4-year-old children. An increase in breast milk dioxins was associated with a decrease in testosterone in serum samples from boys. Similarly, an increase in breast milk dioxins was associated with a decrease in progesterone levels in serum samples from girls. However, dioxins were not associated with changes in the levels of testosterone, DHEA, or A-dione in girls. Based on these results, we conclude that perinatal exposure to dioxins modifies steroidogenesis in preschool-aged children. However, the long-term impact of dioxins requires further large-scale studies to assess these effects in school-going children and adolescents.
围产期接触二恶英会影响甾体激素的合成。本研究旨在评估中国电子废物回收地区学龄前儿童围产期接触二恶英与血清甾体激素水平之间的关系。本研究于 2015 年纳入了来自台州、路桥地区的 50 对母婴。在这 50 对母婴中，有 42 对母婴的孩子在 4 岁时参与了本研究。我们使用高分辨率气相色谱/质谱法测量母乳中二恶英的浓度。此外，我们使用液相色谱-串联质谱法测量了 4 岁儿童血清样本中孕酮、睾酮、雄烯二酮（A-二酮）和脱氢表雄酮（DHEA）的浓度。我们使用多元线性回归来评估二恶英同系物与甾体激素之间的关系。结果以 Bootstrap 法报告为β估计值和 95%置信区间。我们观察到 4 岁儿童的母乳中二恶英与血清甾体激素水平之间存在性别差异。母乳中二恶英的增加与男孩血清样本中睾酮的减少有关。同样，母乳中二恶英的增加与女孩血清样本中孕酮水平的降低有关。然而，二恶英与女孩的睾酮、DHEA 或 A-二酮水平的变化无关。基于这些结果，我们得出结论，围产期接触二恶英会改变学龄前儿童的甾体激素生成。然而，二恶英的长期影响需要进一步的大规模研究来评估这些在学龄儿童和青少年中的影响。
