Background

Phthalates have been largely used for years in varieties of products worldwide. However, research on the joint toxic effect of various phthalates exposure on the liver is lacking.

Objectives

We aimed to assess exposure to phthalates on liver function tests (LFTs).

Methods

This analysis included data on 6046 adults (≥20 years old) who participated in a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) in 2007–2016. We employed linear regression and Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR), to explore the associations of urinary phthalate metabolites with 8 indicators of LFTs.

Results

Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (ΣDEHP) was found to be positively associated with serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) (all P _FDR < 0.05). We found significant positive associations of ∑DEHP, mono-ethyl phthalate (MEP) and mono-(carboxyisononyl) phthalate (MCNP) with total bilirubin (TBIL) (all P _FDR < 0.05). ΣDEHP, mono-n-butyl phthalate (MBP), mono-(3-carboxypropyl) phthalate (MCPP) and mono-benzyl phthalate (MBzP) were negatively associated with serum ALB (all P _FDR < 0.05). The BKMR analyses showed a significantly positive overall effect on ALT, AST, ALP and TBIL levels with high concentrations of phthalate metabolites and a significantly negative overall effect on ALB and TP, when all the chemicals at low concentrations.

Conclusions

Our results add novel evidence that exposures to phthalates might be adversely associated with the indicators of LTFs, indicating the potential toxic effect of phthalate exposures on the human liver.

中文翻译：

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美国成年人口邻苯二甲酸酯代谢物浓度与肝损伤标志物之间的关联

背景

多年来，邻苯二甲酸盐一直被广泛用于世界各地的各种产品中。然而，缺乏对各种邻苯二甲酸酯暴露对肝脏的联合毒性作用的研究。

目标

我们旨在评估肝功能测试 (LFT) 中邻苯二甲酸盐的暴露情况。

方法

该分析包括 6046 名参加 2007-2016 年国家健康和营养检查调查 (NHANES) 的成年人（≥20 岁）的数据。我们采用线性回归和贝叶斯核机器回归 (BKMR) 来探索尿邻苯二甲酸酯代谢物与 LFT 的 8 个指标之间的关联。

结果

发现邻苯二甲酸二（2-乙基己基）酯（ΣDEHP）与血清丙氨酸氨基转移酶（ALT）、γ-谷氨酰转移酶（GGT）和碱性磷酸酶（ALP）呈正相关（所有P _FDR  < 0.05）。我们发现 ∑DEHP、邻苯二甲酸单乙酯 (MEP) 和邻苯二甲酸单(羧异壬酯) (MCNP) 与总胆红素 (TBIL) 显着正相关（所有P _FDR  < 0.05）。ΣDEHP、邻苯二甲酸单正丁酯 (MBP)、邻苯二甲酸单(3-羧丙基)酯 (MCPP) 和邻苯二甲酸单苄酯 (MBzP) 与血清 ALB 呈负相关（所有P _FDR < 0.05)。BKMR 分析表明，当所有化学品浓度低时，邻苯二甲酸酯代谢物浓度高时，对 ALT、AST、ALP 和 TBIL 水平有显着的积极总体影响，对 ALB 和 TP 有显着的负面总体影响。

结论

我们的结果增加了新的证据，表明接触邻苯二甲酸酯可能与 LTF 的指标存在不利关联，表明邻苯二甲酸酯接触对人类肝脏的潜在毒性影响。