Continental Reference Point: Harmonized Human Biomonitoring across Europe
Authors: Kris S. Freeman
Journal: Environmental Health Perspectives (2015)

The Consortium to Perform Human Biomonitoring on a European Scale (COPHES) was launched to collect population-representative data on environmental exposures for the European Union (EU) as a whole.In this issue of EHP, investigators describe results from DEMOCOPHES, the demonstration project that proved the feasibility of a harmonized approach across 17 EU nations. 1 "We have shown that working together on a common protocol allows us to obtain comparable results on an EU-wide level," says lead author Greet Schoeters, program manager of environ ment and health at VITO, the Flemish Institute for Technological Research.This type of human biomonitoring can be used to track exposure trends and potential impacts of environmental regulations.For example, ongoing biomonitoring by the German Environmental Survey (GerES) suggests that a 1992 recommendation against the use of amalgam fillings in children and women of child-bearing age may have contributed to decreasing urinary mercury levels in that country's population. 2 For the current study, researchers analyzed hair and urine samples from 1,844 mother-child pairs recruited from 17 countries.Half the participants lived in rural areas, and half lived in urban areas.All were healthy with no known metabolic disturbances.Samples yielded information on exposures to mercury, cadmium, nicotine, and several phthalates found in personal care products and food packaging.To help ensure validity and transferability of results, researchers developed harmonized protocols and quality controls for chemical and data analyses.As with the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, exposures were associated with known lifestyle and diet predictors, and biomarkers for children closely matched those of their mothers."This overall pattern provides confidence that the effort to validly collect and analyze these samples and companion exposure information was successful," says Lesa Aylward, a toxicologist at Summit Toxicology LLP, who was not involved with the study.The vast majority of biomarker concentrations were below healthbased guidance values set by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) and the German Human Biomonitoring Commission, as well as published values from independent scientists.Eastern, southern, and (to a lesser extent) western European countries clustered together based on similar biomarker patterns, differences that Schoeters says are probably related to lifestyle factors, environmental conditions, and possibly regulation.Levels of metabolites of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) indicated ubiquitous exposure to this compound even though its use is restricted in the EU. 3,4,5Regular consumption of chewing gum and ice cream was associated with higher average concentrations of multiple phthalate metabolites among children and mothers. 1 These treats "may serve as a proxy for other factors, such as levels of processed food in the diet," says Schoeters.For monoisobutyl phthalate, average European values in both mothers and children were 3-4 times higher than those observed in the United States.Compared with the United States, Europeans on average had lower biomarker concentrations of monobenzyl phthalate and monoethyl phthalate, and higher concentrations of mono-n-butyl phthalate and DEHP metabolites, but these differences were less dramatic. 1