Exposure to Aldehydes, Heterocyclic Aromatic Amines and Terpenes With Sex Hormones in U.S. Children and Adolescents: Sex-, Age-Dependent Patterns and Vitamin D Effect Modification.

Abstract

Aldehydes, heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) and terpenes were sparsely studied for their sex-hormone disrupting effect in children and adolescents, although people are widely exposed. This study aimed to investigate the individual and mixture effect of aldehydes, HAAs and terpenes on sex hormones among children and adolescents and explore the effect modification of Vitamin D (VD). Six aldehydes, three HAAs and three terpenes were collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2013-2014, which sampled representative U.S. population. Five sex hormone indicators [testosterone (TT), estradiol (E₂), sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), free androgen index (FAI) and ratio of TT to E₂ (TT/E₂)] were measured. Multiple linear regression and Bayesian kernel machine regression were used to explore the individual- and joint- exposure to these chemicals with each sex hormone, respectively. We primarily found some chemicals were positively associated with SHBG and negatively associated with TT, E₂, and FAI among male adolescents. In addition, when stratified by pubertal status, we mainly found certain chemicals were negatively associated with TT, E₂, FAI and TT/E₂ in pubertal male and prepubertal female. Joint exposure to HAAs were associated with significant decrease in TT and FAI in male adolescent. These associations present age-, sex- and development-dependent patterns. VD modified these associations with significant results more pronounced in VD ≥ 75 nmol/L group. Our study provided novel findings for the hormonal effect of aldehydes, HAAs and terpenes in children and adolescents, and is also significant for potential avenues for public health action and intervention.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43657-024-00190-w.