Original Article Association Between Urinary Phthalates and Pubertal Timing in Chinese Adolescents

Copyright © 2015 Huijing Shi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Background: Phthalates are synthetic chemicals and ubiquitous environmental contaminants, with hormonal activity that may alter the course of pubertal development in children. Objectives: To determine whether exposure to phthalate metabolites is associated with timing of pubertal development in a cross-sectional study of a school-based clustered sample of 503 children from a suburban district in Shanghai, China, who were 7–14 years of age at enrollment (2010 October to November). Methods: We analyzed six phthalate metabolites in urine samples by isotope-dilution liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. The associations of exposures to phthalates with pubertal timing of testes, breast, and pubic hair development (represented as Tanner stages) were evaluated using an ordered logistic regression model adjusted for chronological age, body fat proportion (BF%), and parental education. Results: In boys, urinary mono-n-butyl phthalate (MBP) levels were negatively associated with testicular volume, and mono (2-ethyl-5-hydroxyhexyl) phthalate (MEHHP) and mono (2-ethyl-5-oxohexyl) phthalate (MEOHP) levels were negatively associated with pubic hair stages. The odds of being in an advanced stage were decreased b