STUDY OBJECTIVE To investigate whether neighbourhood characteristics are related to dietary patterns independently of individual level variables. DESIGN A cross sectional analysis of the relation between neighbourhood median household income and food and nutrient intakes, before and after adjustment for individual level variables. SETTING Four United States communities (Washington Co, MD; S...

Recent efforts worldwide have resulted in a growing database of measured concentrations of chemicals in blood and urine samples taken from the general population. However, few tools exist to assist in the interpretation of the measured values in a health risk context. Biomonitoring Equivalents (BEs) are defined as the concentration or range of concentrations of a chemical or its metabolite in a...

The Environmental Criteria and Assessment Office of Cincinnati, of the US Environmental Protection Agency, is engaged in the development of risk assessment guidelines and methodologies as part of the regulatory programme of the Agency. The primary goal of the Agency was originally to accurately assessthe effects of human exposure to single chemicals in a single medium (e.g.water) over a human l...

The concentrations of total mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and organochlorine pesticides (SigmaDDT, dieldrin, hexachlorobenzene [HCB], and SigmaHCH) were determined in 61 whale meat products (bacon, blubber, red meat, liver, intestine, and tongue) purchased from retail outlets across Japan. Mean (range) concentrations of contaminants in all samples were: total mercury 4.17 (0.01-204...

It is important to understand and account for seasonal variation in food and nutrient intakes when planning interventions to combat micronutrient deficiencies in resource-poor settings. The objective of the present study was to quantify food and nutrient intakes and assess the adequacy of micronutrient intakes among young children and their mothers during the lean and post-harvest (PH) seasons ...

Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and related substances have been listed in Annex B of the Stockholm Convention. The implementation requires inventories of use, stockpiles, and environmental contamination including contaminated sites and measures for (risk) reduction and phase out. In most countries monitoring capacity is not available and therefore other approaches for assessment of contami...

BACKGROUND The impact of dietary flavonoid intakes on risk of depression is unclear. OBJECTIVE We prospectively examined associations between estimated habitual intakes of dietary flavonoids and depression risk. DESIGN We followed 82,643 women without a previous history of depression at baseline from the Nurses' Health Study [(NHS) aged 53-80 y] and the Nurses' Health Study II [(NHSII) aged...

The fisheries products in this study comprise fish, bivalve, crustacean and cephalopod collected from different types of markets in Taiwan between the years 2001 and 2003. A total of 91 pesticide residues belonging to four major pesticide groups were tested and analyzed. The test results show that 65.40% of fish, 93.55% of shellfish, 84.92% of crustacean and 98.33% of cephalopod samples contain...

Tobacco is an important cash crop of Pakistan and tremendous amount of irrational pesticides are being used to control insect growth. The frequency of plasma pesticide residues above acceptable daily intake (ADI) and its correlation with biochemical markers for assessment of adverse health effects in the tobacco farmers at district Sawabi, Pakistan was determined. Total 109 adult males consisti...

BACKGROUND Millions of people in Bangladesh are at risk of chronic arsenic toxicity from drinking contaminated groundwater, but little is known about diet as an additional source of As exposure. METHODS We employed a duplicate diet survey to quantify daily As intake in 47 women residing in Pabna, Bangladesh. All samples were analyzed for total As, and a subset of 35 samples were measured for ...