School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
Ministry of Education-Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children's Environmental Health, Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Ecotoxicol Environ Saf. 2021 Jan 15;208:111479. doi: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2020.111479. Epub 2020 Oct 21.
As common environmental pollutants, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that are widely applied in industry and agriculture have adverse effects on neurodevelopment. However, evidence on the neurotoxicity of POPs in neural development of offspring is limited. This study explored the relationship between prenatal exposure to POPs and neurodevelopment of 18-month-old toddlers in a mother-child cohort in Shanghai, China. In this study, we determined exposure levels of 37 POPs in cord blood serum collected at the time of delivery. The detection rate of pollutants HCB, β-HCH, and p,p'-DDE was higher than 60%, so these will be discussed in the following analysis. From birth to approximately 18 months, we followed up infants to longitudinally explore whether POPs influenced their language, motor, and cognitive development according to a Bayley-Ⅲ assessment . Based on multivariable regression analyses, the β-HCH concentration in cord serum was negatively related to motor development scores in children at 18 months by adjusting for the covariates, but there was no change in language and cognition. Further piecewise linear regression analysis showed that a cord serum β-HCH concentration greater than 0.2 μg/L had a significantly negative correlation with the motor development scores. p,p'-DDE was positively associated with language development at 18 months before and after adjusting for covariates. But prenatal HCB levels were not associated with any of the Bayley-Ⅲ subscales at 18 months. We concluded that prenatal exposure to β-HCH might have adverse effects on infants' motor development. The minimum harmful concentration of β-HCH was estimated at 0.2 μg/L in cord serum. The unexpected positive association between p,p'-DDT and language development could be due to live birth bias.
作为广泛应用于工业和农业的常见环境污染物，持久性有机污染物（POPs）对神经发育有不良影响。然而，关于 POPs 在后代神经发育中的神经毒性的证据有限。本研究在中国上海的一项母婴队列中，探讨了产前暴露于 POPs 与 18 个月大婴儿神经发育的关系。在这项研究中，我们在分娩时采集脐血血清，确定了 37 种 POPs 的暴露水平。污染物 HCB、β-HCH 和 p,p'-DDE 的检出率高于 60%，因此以下分析将讨论这些污染物。从出生到大约 18 个月，我们对婴儿进行了随访，根据贝利 III 评估，纵向探讨了 POPs 是否影响了他们的语言、运动和认知发展。基于多变量回归分析，在调整协变量后，脐带血清中β-HCH 浓度与 18 个月儿童的运动发育评分呈负相关，但语言和认知没有变化。进一步的分段线性回归分析表明，脐带血清中β-HCH 浓度大于 0.2μg/L 与运动发育评分呈显著负相关。p,p'-DDE 在调整协变量前后与 18 个月时的语言发育呈正相关。但产前 HCB 水平与贝利 III 各亚量表在 18 个月时均无相关性。我们得出结论，产前暴露于β-HCH 可能对婴儿的运动发育有不良影响。β-HCH 在脐带血清中的最低有害浓度估计为 0.2μg/L。p,p'-DDT 与语言发育之间意外的正相关可能是由于活产偏差所致。
