UC Berkeley

We report longitudinal serum concentrations of select persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in children at ages 7 and 9 years and in their mothers prenatally and again when the children were 9 years old. The participating families were enrolled in the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS), a longitudinal birth cohort study of low-income Hispanic families residing in the Salinas Valley, California. We observed decreasing concentrations in the mothers with year of serum collection (2009 vs 2011) for six out of seven polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) congeners and for 2,2',4,4',5-pentachlorobiphenyl (CB-99; p < 0.05). The 9-year-old children had similarly decreasing serum concentrations of all seven PBDE congeners, CB-99, and 2,2',3,4,4',5'- and 2,3,3',4,4',6-hexachlorobiphenyl (CB-138/158) with year of serum collection (2009 vs 2011; p < 0.05). In mixed effect models accounting for weight gain as the children aged from 7 to 9 years, we observed an annual decrease (-8.3% to -13.4%) in tri- to hexaBDE concentrations (p < 0.001), except for 2,2',3,4,4'-tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-85) and 2,2',4,4',5,5'-hexabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-153). The concentrations of these congeners were not associated with time of serum collection and instead showed an -0.9% to -2.6% decrease per kilogram of weight gain during the study period (p < 0.05). In the case of tetra- to heptachlorobiphenyls, we observed -0.5% to -0.7% decrease in serum concentration per kilogram of weight gain (p < 0.05) and -3.0% to -3.7% decrease in serum concentration per year of aging (p < 0.05), except for 2,3',4,4',5-pentachlorobiphenyl (CB-118) and 2,2',4,4',5,5'-hexachlorobiphenyl (CB-153), which were not associated with time of serum draw. 2,2-Bis(4-chlorophenyl)-1,1-dichloroethene (p,p'-DDE) decreased -2.4%/kg of weight gain between the two sampling points (p < 0.001). These findings suggest that as children grow, dilution in a larger body size plays an important role in explaining reductions in body burden in the case of traditional POPs such as PCBs and p,p'-DDE. By contrast, in the case of PBDEs, reductions are likely explained by reduction in exposure, as illustrated by decreased concentrations in more recent years, possibly amplified by presumed shorter biological half-life than other POPs.