In Tongliang, China, a coal-fired power plant was the major pollution source until its shutdown in 2004. We enrolled two cohorts of nonsmoking women and their newborns before and after the shutdown to examine the relationship between prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and fetal and child growth and development. PAHs were used to measure exposure to air pollution generated by the power plant. Using PAH–DNA adduct levels as biomarkers for the biologically effective dose of PAH exposure, we examined whether PAH–DNA adduct levels were associated with birth outcome, growth rate, and neurodevelopment. Head circumference was greater in children of the second cohort, compared with the first (p = 0.001), consistent with significantly reduced levels of cord blood PAH–DNA adducts in cohort II (p < 0.001) and reduced levels of ambient PAHs (p = 0.01).

Individuals’ exposure to various persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and its adverse health effects have been a cause of concern. We measured blood PCB concentrations from samples taken from 507 Japanese individuals ranging from infants to those over 80 years of age. The blood PCB levels increased with age for both male (Spearman’s r = 0.69, p < 0.001) and female (Spearman’s r = 0.70, p < 0.001) participants. Adult men and nulliparous women showed similar increases with age. However, the PCB levels of multiparous women were lower than those of nulliparous women in their thirties (p = 0.005), probably because the PCBs were transferred from the mothers to their children during pregnancy and lactation. Among infants (<2 years of age), some had as high levels of accumulated PCB levels as those in adults >30 years of age. In some cases, the PCB levels were over 0.8 ng/g wet weight, similar to levels observed in adults over 50 years of age. In the future, it will be necessary to do research on the health of the children who are exposed by high concentration level of POPs.

Dimethylformamide (DMF) is a broad solvent used in the production of synthetic leather. Decades of year's research have been focused on workers in leather factories suffering from the release of DMF. However, little attention was paid on general population. Here, we examined the relationship between consistent DMF exposure and annual hospitalizations of local residents in Longwan, China, in 2008. We found a positive correlation with a relative risk (RR) increase of 1.110 for total hospitalizations. When the data were stratified by sex, we observed a higher correlation for female hospitalizations than for male hospitalizations, with RR values of 1.55 and 1.084, respectively. This might be attributed to the differences in genotypes of oxidant enzyme between gender. The significance of the correlations did not disappear after we excluded the extreme value of DMF or adjusted for SO₂, NO₂, and PM₁₀. Population living near the leather factory has experienced almost constant DMF exposure, and real concern should be raised regarding such exposure. Governments should take responsibility for the protection of not only occupational workers but also residents, especially women.

Birth weight may be influenced by environmental and socio-economic factors that could interact. The main objective of our research was to investigate whether area deprivation may modify the association between drinking water exposure to a mixture of atrazine metabolites and nitrates during the second trimester of pregnancy and prevalence of small for gestational age (SGA) neonates. We conducted a historic cohort study in Deux-Sèvres, France between 2005 and 2010, using birth records, population census and regularly performed drinking water withdrawals at community water systems. Exposure to an atrazine metabolite/nitrate mixture in drinking water was divided into six classes according to the presence or absence of atrazine metabolites and to the terciles of nitrate concentrations in each trimester of pregnancy. We used a logistic regression to model the association between SGA and mixture exposure at the second trimester while taking into account the area deprivation measured by the Townsend index as an effect modifier and controlling for the usual confounders. We included 10,784 woman–neonate couples. The risk of SGA when exposed to second tercile of nitrate without atrazine metabolites was significantly greater in women living in less deprived areas (OR = 2.99; 95 % CI (1.14, 7.89)), whereas it was not significant in moderately and more deprived areas. One of the arguments used to explain this result is the presence of competing risk factors in poorer districts.

This study evaluated the variability of GSTM1 and GSTT1 polymorphisms in individuals occupationally exposed to pesticides in ten Goias municipalities that present intense agricultural activity. We evaluated blood samples of 235 individuals, which 120 were rural workers occupationally exposed to pesticides and 115 formed the control group, analyzing GST polymorphisms by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR).The exposed group consisted of 111 men and nine women only getting an average of 39 ± 9 years. These workers were from ten rural municipalities situated at Goias state. It was found that 18 % of the exposed individuals had the GSTT1 null genotype and 49 % had the GSTM1 null genotype, and 10 % had both null genotypes. Data as intoxication (42 %), use of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE; 52 %) and if the worker prepared the pesticide (7 %), or if just applied the pesticide (22 %) or if the worker prepared and applied (71 %) have all been correlated with genetic polymorphisms. There were no statistically significant differences between the GSTM1 and GSTT1 polymorphisms between control and exposed groups. Finally, we could not associate a null GSTT1 or null GSTM1 polymorphisms or both to intoxication events caused by pesticides, but instead we presented the importance to use PPE to prevent such harm, once we found a statistically significant association between the use of PPE and events of intoxication (p ≤ 0.001).

Blood levels of the elements Cu, Zn, Se, As, Cd, Hg, and Pb have been determined in 62 Nigerian women who were occupationally exposed to vehicular pollution. Mercury was determined using a direct mercury analyzer, while all the other elements were determined by an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer system. The mean values for all the toxic elements were all within the recommended desirable/tolerable limits, except for Se (0.44 μg/mL, compared with <0.2 μg/mL recommended by the WHO). More than 98 % of the subjects had blood selenium levels higher than this recommended limit. For As, Hg, and Pb, the corresponding figures of subjects with blood levels above the recommended limits were 4, 8, and 19.3 %, respectively. When the subjects were grouped according to their body mass indexes as normal, underweight, overweight, and obese, analysis of variance shows that mean blood levels of Cu, As, and, to some extent Hg were significantly different in the four nutritional status groups. Blood Hg level correlates significantly with blood As in all the groups, except in obese subjects. Also, a significant correlation between age and blood Hg was observed only in normal subjects and between age and blood Pb only in obese subjects. These results suggest that nutritional status could influence both elemental levels and the interactions between trace elements in the blood of female subjects. Nutrition is therefore a factor to consider in efforts to modify human susceptibility to toxic elements.