Journal Article Ppublish 2 citations
PubMed: 39427938 DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.120198
Exploring diet as a source of plasticizers in pregnancy and implications for maternal second-trimester metabolic health.
Environ Res 263(Pt 3):120198
Authors: Diana C Pacyga, Luca Jolly, Jason Whalen, Antonia M Calafat, Joseph M Braun, Susan L Schantz, Rita S Strakovsky
Affiliations
- Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA; Institute for Integrative Toxicology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA; Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
- Lyman Briggs College, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA; Honors College, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.
- Michigan Diabetes Research Center Chemistry Laboratory, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
- Division of Laboratory Sciences, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA.
- Department of Epidemiology, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
- The Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA; Department of Comparative Biosciences, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA.
- Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA; Institute for Integrative Toxicology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Diet plays critical roles in modulating maternal metabolic health in pregnancy, but is also a source of metabolic-disrupting phthalates and their replacements. We aimed to evaluate whether the effects of better diet quality on favorable maternal metabolic outcomes could be partially explained by lower exposure to phthalates/replacements.
METHODS
At 13 weeks gestation, 295 Illinois women (enrolled 2015-2018) completed a three-month food frequency questionnaire that we used to calculate the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI)-2010 to assess diet quality. We quantified 19 metabolites, reflecting exposure to 10 phthalates/replacements, in a pool of five first-morning urine samples collected monthly across pregnancy. We measured 15 metabolic biomarkers in fasting plasma samples collected at 17 weeks gestation, which we reduced to five uncorrelated principal components (PCs), representing adiposity, lipids, cholesterol, inflammation, and growth. We used linear regression to estimate associations of diet quality with [1] phthalates/replacements and [2] metabolic PCs, as well as [3] associations of phthalates/replacements with metabolic PCs. We estimated the proportion of associations between diet quality and metabolic outcomes explained by phthalates/replacements using a causal mediation framework.
RESULTS
Overall, every 10-point improvement in AHEI-2010 score was associated with -0.15 (95% CI: -0.27, -0.04) lower adiposity scores, reflecting lower glucose, insulin, C-peptide, leptin, C-reactive protein, but higher adiponectin biomarker levels. Every 10-point increase in diet quality was also associated with 18% (95%CI: 7%, 28%) lower sum of di-2-ethylhexyl terephthalate urinary metabolites (∑DEHTP). Correspondingly, each 18% increase in ∑DEHTP was associated with 0.03 point (95% CI: 0.01, 0.05) higher adiposity PC scores. In mediation analyses, 21% of the inverse relationship between diet quality and adiposity PC scores was explained by lower ∑DEHTP.
CONCLUSIONS
The favorable impact of diet quality on maternal adiposity biomarkers may be partially attributed to lower metabolite concentrations of DEHTP, a plasticizer allowed to be used in food packaging materials.
MeSH
Pregnancy, Plasticizers, Adiposity, Biomarkers, Diet, Pregnancy Trimester, Second, Food, Environmental Health, Diet, Healthy, Negotiating