title: Daily intake and hazard index of parabens based upon 24 h urine samples of the German Environmental Specimen Bank from 1995 to 2012.
abstract: In recent years, exposure to parabens has become more of a concern because of evidence of ubiquitous exposure in the general population, combined with evidence of their potency as endocrine disruptors. New human metabolism data from oral exposure experiments enable us to back calculate daily paraben intakes from urinary paraben levels. We report daily intakes (DIs) for six parabens based on 660 24 h urine samples from the German Environmental Specimen Bank collected between 1995 and 2012. Median DI values ranged between 1.1 μg/kg bw/day for iso-butyl paraben and 47.5 μg/kg bw/day for methyl paraben. The calculated DIs were compared with acceptable levels of exposure to evaluate the hazard quotients (HQs) that indicate that acceptable exposure is exceeded for values of >1. Approximately 5% of our study population exceeded this threshold for individual paraben exposure. The hazard index (HI) that takes into account the cumulative risk of adverse estrogenic effects was 1.3 at the 95th percentile and 4.4 at maximum intakes, mainly driven by n-propyl paraben exposure. HI values of >1 indicate some level of concern. However, we have to point out that we applied most conservative assumptions in the HQ/HI calculations. Also, major exposure reduction measures were enacted in the European Union after 2012.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Prevention and Occupational Medicine of the German Social Accident Insurance, Institute of the Ruhr-University Bochum (IPA), Bürkle-de-la-Camp-Platz 1, Bochum 44789, Germany.
authors.forename: Rebecca K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Moos
authors.affiliation: German Environment Agency (UBA), Corrensplatz 1, Berlin 14195, Germany.
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Apel
authors.affiliation: German Environment Agency (UBA), Corrensplatz 1, Berlin 14195, Germany.
authors.forename: Christa
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schröter-Kermani
authors.affiliation: German Environment Agency (UBA), Corrensplatz 1, Berlin 14195, Germany.
authors.forename: Marike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kolossa-Gehring
authors.affiliation: Institute for Prevention and Occupational Medicine of the German Social Accident Insurance, Institute of the Ruhr-University Bochum (IPA), Bürkle-de-la-Camp-Platz 1, Bochum 44789, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Brüning
authors.affiliation: Institute for Prevention and Occupational Medicine of the German Social Accident Insurance, Institute of the Ruhr-University Bochum (IPA), Bürkle-de-la-Camp-Platz 1, Bochum 44789, Germany.
authors.forename: Holger M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Koch
mesh_terms: D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000032:analysis* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000652:urine*; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D010226:Parabens / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D010226:Parabens