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Year-to-year variation in phthalate metabolites in the Midlife Women’s Health Study

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology (2023)Cite this article

Abstract

Background

Humans are widely exposed to phthalates, which are metabolized in the body and excreted in urine. Phthalate metabolites are excreted within hours of exposure, making urinary phthalate biomarker concentrations highly variable.

Objective

The goal of this study was to characterize the long-term variability in phthalate biomarker concentrations in women across the midlife transition and to identify factors that may be associated with increased variability in those phthalate biomarker concentrations by analyzing longitudinal urinary phthalate metabolite data from the Midlife Women’s Health Study (2006–2015).

Methods

A total of 741 women were enrolled in the study for a period of up to 4 years, during which they each provided 2–4 urine samples per year over 4 consecutive weeks that were pooled for analysis (1876 total pools). Nine phthalate metabolites were assessed individually and as molar sums representative of common compounds (all phthalates: ƩPhthalates; DEHP: ƩDEHP), exposure sources (plastics: ƩPlastic; personal care products: ƩPCP), and modes of action (anti-androgenic: ƩAA). Phthalate metabolites were analyzed by quartile using generalized linear models. In addition, the impact of explanatory variables (race, annual family income, and type of work) on phthalate quartile was examined using ordinal logistic regression models.

Impact statement

Phthalate biomarker concentrations are highly variable among midlife women over time, and annual sampling may not be sufficient to fully characterize long-term exposure.

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Fig. 1: Phthalate Dynamics.
Fig. 2: Phthalate Quartile Dynamics.
Fig. 3: Pearson correlation coefficients among the annual change in urinary phthalate values for all years in a cohort of midlife women.
Fig. 4: Intracluster correlation coefficient (ICC) for each phthalate metabolite in all women and in particular population subgroups across the years, based on a model with random effects by individual.

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Data availability

Some or all datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the MWHS participants for their time, information, and biological samples and the staff members at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who helped with this study.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R01 ES026956, R00 ES031150, T32 ES007326, P30 ES005022).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Environmental Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA

    Genoa R. Warner

  2. Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Zhong Li

  3. Department of Comparative Biosciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Jodi A. Flaws

  4. Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Jodi A. Flaws & Rebecca Smith

  5. Department of Pathobiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Rebecca Smith

  6. Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences, Carle-Illinois College of Medicine, Urbana, IL, USA

    Rebecca Smith

Authors
  1. Genoa R. Warner
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  2. Zhong Li
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  3. Jodi A. Flaws
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  4. Rebecca Smith
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Contributions

GRW helped to write the manuscript. ZL analyzed the physical samples and reviewed the manuscript. JAF oversaw the data collection and was involved in the planning of the research. RS planned the research, conducted the data analysis, and helped to write the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rebecca Smith.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval

The Institutional Review Boards of the University of Illinois and Johns Hopkins University both approved this research.

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Warner, G.R., Li, Z., Flaws, J.A. et al. Year-to-year variation in phthalate metabolites in the Midlife Women’s Health Study. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41370-023-00614-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41370-023-00614-1

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