Pilot Study of Urinary Biomarkers of Phytoestrogens, Phthalates, and Phenols in Girls Mary S. Wolff,1 Susan L. Teitelbaum,1 Gayle Windham,2 Susan M. Pinney,3 Julie A. Britton,1 Carol Chelimo,1 James Godbold,1 Frank Biro,4 Lawrence H. Kushi,5 Christine M. Pfeiffer, 6 and Antonia M. Calafat6 1Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, New York, New York, USA; 2Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control, California Department of Health Services, Oakland, California, USA; 3Department of Environmental Health, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; 4Division of Adolescent Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Ohio, USA; 5Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, California, USA; 6Division of Laboratory Sciences, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Abstract Background: Hormonally active environmental agents have been measured among U.S. children using exposure biomarkers in urine. However, little is known about their variation by race, age, sex, and geography, and no data exist for newly developed biomarkers. Objective: Our goal was to characterize relevant, prevalent exposures for a study of female pubertal development. Methods: In a pilot study among 90 girls from New York City, New York, Cincinnati, Ohio, and northern California, we measured 25 urinary analytes representing 22 separate agents from three chemical families: phytoestrogens, phthalates, and phenols. Exposures occur chiefly from the diet and from household or personal care products. Results: Participants represented four racial/ethnic groups (Asian, black, Hispanic, white) , with mean age of 7.77 years. Most analytes were detectable in > 94% of samples. The highest median concentrations for individual analytes in each family were for enterolactone (298 µg/L) , monoethylphthalate (MEP ; 83.2 µg/L) , and benzophenone-3 (BP3 ; 14.7 µg/L) . Few or no data have been reported previously for four metabolites: mono(2-ethyl-5-carboxypentyl) phthalate, triclosan, bisphenol A (BPA) , and BP3 ; these were detected in 67–100% of samples with medians of 1.8–53.2 µg/L. After multivariate adjustment, two analytes, enterolactone and BPA, were higher among girls with body mass index < 85th reference percentile than those at or above the 85th percentile. Three phthalate metabolites differed by race/ethnicity [MEP, mono(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, and mono-3-carboxypropylphthalate]. Conclusions: A wide spectrum of hormonally active exposure biomarkers were detectable and variable among young girls, with high maximal concentrations (> 1,000 µg/L) found for several analytes. They varied by characteristics that may be relevant to development. Key words: biomarkers, children, exposure, phenols, phthalates, phytoestrogen, urine. Environ Health Perspect 115: 116–121 (2007) . doi:10.1289/ehp.9488 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 19 October 2006] Address correspondence to M.S. Wolff, Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1057, New York, NY 10029 USA. Telephone: (212) 241-6183. Fax: (212) 996-0407. E-mail: mary.wolff@mssm.edu Supplemental Material is available online at http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2006/9488/suppl.pdf We thank the study investigators and staff at the three medical centers involved in this research including S. Peter, A. Mejia, A. Richiez, J. Guiterrez, R. Osborne, M. Galvez, and B. Brenner (Mount Sinai) ; C. Dahl, C. Baker, S. Myatt, K. Ford, B. Bornschein, and L. Yaghjyan (Cincinnati) ; R. Hiatt, L. Greenspan, B. Sternfeld, C. Ashley, C. Bonnell, A. Beeck, C. Chan, D. Davis, E. Landaverde, S. Burleson, and M. Trotter (Kaiser Permanente) . We are grateful to M. Silva, E. Samandar, and J. Preau for phthalate measurements ; X. Ye and A. Bishop for phenols measurements ; J. Reidy for phthalate and phenols quality control/quality assurance analysis ; and M. Rybak and D. Parker for phytoestrogens measurements. We gratefully acknowledge G.W. Collman [National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) ], L.L. Needham [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ], L. Reinlib (NIEHS) , and D.G. Winn [National Cancer Institute (NCI) ] for arranging the interagency collaboration that supported analysis of these samples. This study was conducted within the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Centers, a network of centers including the Fox Chase Cancer Center, Michigan State University, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of California San Francisco Comprehensive Cancer Center and supported by grants ES/CA12770, 012771, 012800, 012801 from the NIEHS and the NCI, NIH, DHHS. We acknowledge support from the NIEHS (ES009584 and ES012645) , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (R827039 and RD831711) , Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATU 300014) , NCI (CA93447) , and National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) (MO1-RR-00071) . The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIEHS, NCI, NCRR, NIH, or CDC. The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 6 July 2006 ; accepted 19 October 2006. The full version of this article is available for free in HTML or PDF formats. |