Phthalate exposure from drugs?A regimen of prescription pills may explain the highest blood concentration of a phthalate Phthal´ate n. 1. (Chem.) A salt of phthalic acid. ever observed, medical researchers say. Phthalates Phthalates, or phthalate esters, are a group of chemical compounds that are mainly used as plasticizers (substances added to plastics to increase their flexibility). They are chiefly used to turn polyvinyl chloride from a hard plastic into a flexible plastic. are used as solvents, in plastics formulations, and for other purposes. Last year, Russ Hauser of the Harvard School of Public Health The Harvard School of Public Health is (colloquially, HSPH) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Longwood Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill, next to Harvard Medical School and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Boston and his colleagues found that men with high exposures to certain phthalates are likely to have sperm abnormalities (SN: 5/31/08, p. 339). Phthalates are common in people's urine, but how these chemicals get into the body has remained unclear. Contact with phthalate-containing plastics and cosmetics is one likely path of exposure. Oral medications, which are sometimes coated with phthalates to control when the pills dissolve, could be another. One volunteer in Hauser's study had a concentration of mono-butyl phthalate in his urine several hundred times higher than average in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . In a report in an upcoming Environmental Health Perspectives, Hauser and his team suggest that the man's primary exposure to the phthalate was from a drug, Asacol, that he had been taking 12 times daily for ulcerative colitis ulcerative colitis Inflammation of the colon, especially of its mucous membranes. The inflamed membranes develop patches of tiny ulcers, and the diarrhea contains blood and mucus. . Asacol's coating contains dibutyl phthalate, which the body converts into mono butyl butyl /bu·tyl/ (bu´t'l) a hydrocarbon radical, C4H9. bu·tyl n. A hydrocarbon radical, C4H9. butyl a hydrocarbon radical, C4H9. phthalate, but not three other phthalates the researchers studied. These three chemicals showed up in unremarkable concentrations in the patient's urine. Longterm use of phthalate-coated pills may be an underrated route of phthalate exposure, the researchers suggest.--B.H. |
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