title: Urinary glycol ether metabolites in women and time to pregnancy: the PELAGIE cohort.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Glycol ethers are present in a wide range of occupational and domestic products. Animal studies have suggested that some of them may affect ovarian function.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We examined the relation between women's exposure to glycol ethers and time to pregnancy.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry to measure eight glycol ether metabolites in urine samples from randomly selected women in the PELAGIE mother-child cohort who had samples collected before 19 weeks of gestation. Using time to pregnancy information collected at the beginning of the pregnancy (women were asked how many months it took for them to conceive), we estimated associations between metabolite levels and time to pregnancy in 519 women with complete data using discrete-time Cox proportional hazards models to adjust for potential confounders.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We detected glycol ether metabolites in 6% (for ethoxyacetic acid) to 93% (for phenoxyacetic and butoxyacetic acids) of urine samples. Phenoxyacetic acid was the only metabolite with a statistically significant association with longer time to pregnancy [fecundability OR = 0.82; 95% CI: 0.63, 1.06 for the second and third quartile combined; fecundability OR = 0.70; 95% CI: 0.52, 0.95 for a fourth-quartile (≥ 1.38 mg/L) vs. first-quartile concentration (< 0.14 mg/L)]. This association remained stable after multiple sensitivity analyses.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Phenoxyacetic acid, which was present in most of the urine samples tested in our study, was associated with increased time to pregnancy. This metabolite and its main parent compound, 2-phenoxyethanol, are plausible causes of decreased fecundability, but they may also be surrogates for potential coexposures to compounds frequently present in cosmetics.
authors.affiliation: INSERM (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale), U1085 IRSET (Institut de Recherche en Santé, Environnement et Travail), Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Ronan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Garlantézec
authors.forename: Charline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Warembourg
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Monfort
authors.forename: Laurence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Labat
authors.forename: Juha
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pulkkinen
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bonvallot
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Multigner
authors.forename: Cécile
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chevrier
authors.forename: Sylvaine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cordier
mesh_terms: D000085:Acetates / Q000633:toxicity / Q000652:urine; D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005026:Ethylene Glycols / Q000652:urine; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D018811:Maternal Exposure; D011247:Pregnancy; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D061685:Time-to-Pregnancy / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000633:toxicity / Q000652:urine*
chemical_list: D000085:Acetates; D005026:Ethylene Glycols; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; C005398:phenoxyethanol; C415326:phenoxyacetic acid