Biomonitoring of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the urine of lactating mothers: Urinary levels, association with lifestyle factors, and risk assessment.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are pollutants produced during incomplete combustion of organic matter and several industrial processes. Humans can be exposed to PAHs through ingestion of food, inhalation of tobacco smoke or polluted air, and dermal contact, causing immunologic, developmental, and reproductive problems. In the present research, eleven metabolites of PAHs were analyzed in the urine of 110 lactating women living in Spain (2015). PAH metabolites were extracted from the urine samples by liquid-liquid extraction and their determination was performed by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. In addition, information on lifestyle and dietary habits of the participants was collected using a questionnaire. All the PAH metabolites were detected in more than 70% of the samples, except for 3-hydroxybenzo(a)pyrene which was detected in less than 1% of the samples. The highest urinary levels were found for naphthalene metabolites, with geometric means of 0.8 (1-hydroxynaphthalene) and 7.1 ng ml

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Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.