Some phthalates are developmental and reproductive toxicants in animals. Exposure to phthalates is considered to be potentially harmful to human health as well. Based on a comprehensive literature research, we present an overview of the sources of human phthalate exposure and results of exposure assessments with special focus on human biomonitoring data. Among the general population, there is w...

Phthalates are commonly used as plasticizers in the manufacturing of flexible polyvinyl chloride products. Large production volumes of phthalates and their widespread use in common consumer, medical, building, and personal care products lead to ubiquitous human exposure via oral ingestion, inhalation, and dermal contact. Recently, several phthalates have been classified as reproductive toxicant...

Phthalates are a family of industrial chemicals that have been used for a variety of purposes. As the potential consequences of human exposure to phthalates have raised concerns in the general population, they have been studied in susceptible subjects such as pregnant women, infants and children. This article aims at evaluating the impact of exposure to phthalates on reproductive outcomes and c...

BACKGROUND In animal studies, some ortho-phthalates, including di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) and di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP), have been shown to be reproductive and developmental toxicants. Human studies show widespread population exposure to background levels of phthalates. Limited evidence suggests that particularly high exposure levels may result from orally ingested medicinal products co...

Phthalates are commonly used as plasticizers and vehicles for cosmetic ingredients. Phthalate metabolites have documented biochemical activity including activating peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor and antiandrogenic effects, which may contribute to the development of obesity. In vitro and in vivo studies suggest that phthalates have significant effects on the development of obesity, e...

Phthalates, an alkyl aryl esters of 1, 2 benzenedicarboxylic acids are widely used as plasticizer. They show low water solubility, high oil solubility, high octanol-to-water partition coefficient and low volatility. Phthalates are easily released into the packed food because there is no covalent bond between the phthalates and plastics in which they are mixed. Phthalates may cause major ill eff...

The adsorption properties of various sorbent materials were investigated to assess the factors affecting biases in the sorbent tube (ST) sampling of airborne phthalates. The recovery of phthalates was assessed critically in relation to four key sampling parameters: (1) three types of sorbent materials (quartz wool (QW), glass wool (GW), and quartz wool plus Tenax TA (QWTN)), (2) the concentrati...

Data from experiments conducted almost exclusively in the rat have established that some phthalates have deleterious effects on the fetal testis probably due to their antiandrogenic and/or estrogenic effects, but their mechanisms of action remain unknown. A recent study reported that phthalates also have deleterious effects on human fetal testis with germ cell number, but not steroidogenesis al...

Phthalates are environmental hormone-like molecules that are associated with breast cancer risk and are involved in metastasis, a process that requires the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). However, few studies have addressed the potential effects of phthalates on stem cells. Here we tested the hypothesis that phthalates such as butyl benzyl phthalate and di-n-butyl phthalate induce EMT ...

Phthalates are widely used as plasticizers to make polymers more flexible in industrial and household products. However, lower molecular weight ortho-phthalate plasticizers have serious health effects and are restricted or banned in many countries for use in children’s products. In addition, several government agencies restrict or are investigating restricting ortho-phthalates (ortho-dialkyl ph...