Wastewater-based epidemiology to assess human exposure to personal care and household products - A review of biomarkers, analytical methods, and applications

Humans are nowadays exposed to numerous chemicals in our day-to-day life, including parabens, UV filters, phosphorous flame retardants/plasticizers, bisphenols, phthalates and alternative plasticizers, which can have different adverse effects to human health. Estimating human's exposure to these potentially harmful substances is, therefore, of paramount importance. Human biomonitoring (HBM) is the existing approach to assess exposure to environmental contaminants, which relies on the analysis of specific human biomarkers (parent compounds and/or their metabolic products) in biological matrices from individuals. The main drawback is its implementation, which involves complex cohort studies. A novel approach, wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), involves estimating exposure from the analysis of biomarkers in sewage (a pooled urine and feces sample of an entire population). One of the key challenges of WBE is the selection of biomarkers which are specific to human metabolism, excreted in sufficient amounts, and stable in sewage. So far, literature data on potential biomarkers for estimating exposure to these chemicals are scattered over numerous pharmacokinetic and HBM studies. Hence, this review provides a list of potential biomarkers of exposure to more than 30 widely used chemicals and report on their urinary excretion rates. Furthermore, the potential and challenges of WBE in this particular field is discussed through the review of pioneer WBE studies, which for the first time explored applicability of this novel approach to assess human exposure to environmental contaminants. In the future, WBE could be potentially applied as an "early warning system", which could promptly identify communities with the highest exposure to environmental contaminants.

Evaluation of estrogenic chemicals in capsule and French press coffee using ultra-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry

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Liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry detected estrogenic chemicals in coffee.

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The potential risk to health is likely to be low relative to established guidelines.

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Future studies should evaluate the health risk from chronic coffee consumption.

The objective of this study was to examine exposure to estrogenic chemicals (ECs) via capsule coffee. Twenty-two brands of capsule coffee and 15 brands of French press coffee for comparison were brewed, and their contents of ECs were identified and quantified using ultra-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry. Exposure to ECs in coffee were compared to tolerable daily intake guidelines to assess potential hazard to health. Benzophenone was the most frequently detected EC in capsule coffee (mean concentration ± SD: 20.37 ± 47.07 ng/mL, n = 6), followed by bisphenol A (BPA, 0.31 ± 0.71, n = 4), dibutyl phthalate (1.41 ± 3.58, n = 3), 4-nonylphenol (0.67 ± 1.82, n = 3) and bisphenol F (BPF, 0.49 ± 1.54, n = 2). BPA and BPF were each detected in 3 French press coffee samples (0.29 ± 0.58 and 0.85 ± 1.75 ng/mL, respectively). Two French press coffee brands purchased as ground coffee rather than whole bean were positive for ECs (BPA in one and BPF in both). Hazard indexes were below 1.0 for each EC for both coffee types. These results indicate that there is EC contamination in capsule and French press coffee, but the quantities of ECs are low relative to established safety guidelines.