Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases

The study of indoor environmental quality as well as the development and progression of chronic respiratory diseases have received a great deal of attention in the past few years. However, most of those surveys focus on the effects of particulate matter (PM) and biological contaminants (fungi and bacteria) and evidences on the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in these pathologies are limited. Hence, RESPIRA project aims to contribute towards a better understanding of the role of multiple stressors in respiratory diseases by providing data on the levels and effects of EDCs in patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and control individuals from Estarreja region (NW Portugal). Here we will summarize the results obtained for phenolic compounds (parabens, triclosan and triclocarban) in matched human and indoor environmental samples (house dust) from COPD patients. Overall, the concentrations in dust samples are one to two orders of magnitude higher that the concentrations in human urine. Triclosan was detected in all the dust samples, triclocarban was detected in 82% of the dust samples and parabens in 90% to 100% of the samples. In urine samples, triclosan was detected in 56% of the samples, triclocarban was always bellow detection limit (0.25 ng/mL) and parabens detection frequency varied widely (23-84%). Interestingly, the highest level reported in dust for triclosan (1200 ng/g) corresponded to the house of the patient with the highest triclosan concentration in urine (140 ng/mL).publishe

Personal care products in matched human and environmental samples collected under the framework of RESPIRA Project

The indoor environment is an important source of exposure to microbial communities that may deleteriously affect human respiratory health. Recent studies demonstrated that the microbial community structure can be altered by the use of household products such as antimicrobial agents. Hence, in order to understand the modulation of the indoor microbiome by household products and their joint effect in the respiratory status of COPD patients we evaluated the levels of antimicrobials agents in dust samples and matched urine samples from patients with COPD. Overall, the concentrations in dust samples are one to two orders of magnitude higher that the concentrations in human urine. Triclosan was detected in all the dust samples, triclocarban was detected in 82% of the dust samples and parabens in 90% to 100% of the samples. In urine samples, triclosan was detected in 56% of the samples, triclocarban was always bellow detection limit (0.25 ng/mL) and parabens detection frequency varied widely (23-84%). Interestingly, the highest level reported in dust for triclosan (1200 ng/g) corresponded to the house of the patient with the highest triclosan concentration in urine (140 ng/mL) and at that house high levels of antibiotic resistant bacteria were found. Such results suggest that the use of antimicrobials might be associated with the presence of resistant bacteria and thus deserve to be further studied.publishe

Uptake and Metabolism of Human Pharmaceuticals by Fish - A Case Study with the Opioid Analgesic Tramadol.

This document is the unedited Author’s version of a Submitted Work that was subsequently accepted for publication in Environmental science & technology, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b03441Recent species-extrapolation approaches to predict the potential effects of pharmaceuticals present in the environment on wild fish are based on the assumption that pharmacokinetics and metabolism in humans and fish are comparable. To test this hypothesis, we exposed fathead minnows to the opiate pro-drug tramadol and examined uptake from the water into the blood and brain, and metabolism of the drug into its main metabolites. We found that plasma concentrations could be predicted reasonably accurately based on the lipophilicity of the drug, once the pH of the water was taken into account. The concentrations of the drug and its main metabolites were higher in the brain than in the plasma, and the observed brain/plasma concentration ratios were within the range of values reported in mammalian species. This fish species was able to metabolise the pro-drug tramadol into the highly active metabolite O-desmethyl tramadol and the inactive metabolite N-desmethyl tramadol in a similar manner to mammals. However, we found that concentration ratios of O-desmethyl tramadol to tramadol were lower in the fish than values in most humans administered the drug. Our pharmacokinetic data of tramadol in fish help bridge the gap between widely available mammalian pharmacological data and potential effects on aquatic organisms, and highlight the importance of understanding drug uptake and metabolism in fish to enable the full implementation of predictive toxicology approaches.We would like to thank members of the Ecotoxicology Research Group, Brunel University London, particularly J. Walker, N. Brodigan, and A. Ferreira for fish husbandry, and T. Thrupp, E. Lawton, and A. Baynes for fish sampling. The research at Brunel University London was internally funded by the university. This study was also supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT) to a project on Joint Usage/Research Center– Leading Academia in Marine and Environment Pollution Research (LaMer), and Research Fellowships from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) for Young Scientists in Japan (PD) provided to R. Tanoue (26·2800), Grants in Bid (KAKENHI) for Scientific Research (A) (25257403), Scientific Research (A) (16H01784). This study was also funded by the Sasakawa Scientific Research Grant from The Japan Science Society

Endocrine disrupting chemicals in indoor dust and the implications for human exposure: preliminary findings

Personal care products, including cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, are major sources of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC), such as parabens and triclosan (TCS) (Mitro et al. 2016). The use of these compounds has resulted in extensive environmental occurrence and human exposure. So far, levels of these chemicals in residences has not yet been fully explored, particularly in indoor dust (Chen et al. 2018; Geens et al. 2009). The objectives of the study were to determine the concentrations of four parabens and TCS in house dust samples and to estimate human exposure doses to these compounds through ingestion in different life stages (infants, toddlers, children, teenagers and adults).This work was supported by FCT-FAPESP (FAPESP/19914/2014); Joana Madureira, Ana Inês Silva, Carla Costa are supported by FCT (SFRH/BPD/115112/2016; SFRH/BD/145101/2019, SFRH/BPD/96196/2013 grants, respectively) and Ana Catarina Sousa by University of Aveiro. Further financial support was provided by LaMer Project funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT).N/

Uptake and Tissue Distribution of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in Wild Fish from Treated-Wastewater-Impacted Streams

A fish plasma model (FPM) has been proposed as a screening technique to prioritize potential hazardous pharmaceuticals to wild fish. However, this approach does not account for inter- or intraspecies variability of pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic parameters. The present study elucidated the uptake potency (from ambient water), tissue distribution, and biological risk of 20 pharmaceutical and personal care product (PPCP) residues in wild cyprinoid fish inhabiting treated-wastewater-impacted streams. In order to clarify the uncertainty of the FPM for PPCPs, we compared the plasma bioaccumulation factor in the field (BAF_plasma = measured fish plasma/ambient water concentration ratio) with the predicted plasma bioconcentration factor (BCF_plasma = fish plasma predicted by use of theoretical partition coefficients/ambient water concentration ratio) in the actual environment. As a result, the measured maximum BAF_plasma of inflammatory agents was up to 17 times higher than theoretical BCF_plasma values, leading to possible underestimation of toxicological risk on wild fish. When the tissue–blood partition coefficients (tissue/blood concentration ratios) of PPCPs were estimated, higher transportability into tissues, especially the brain, was found for psychotropic agents, but brain/plasma ratios widely varied among individual fish (up to 28-fold). In the present study, we provide a valuable data set on the intraspecies variability of PPCP pharmacokinetics, and our results emphasize the importance of determining PPCP concentrations in possible target organs as well as in the blood to assess the risk of PPCPs on wild fish

Levels of endocrine disruptors in Portugal: results from the joint collaboration between Portugal and Japan

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