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Very low-level prenatal mercury exposure and behaviors in children: the HOME Study

BACKGROUND: Mercury is toxic to the developing brain, but the lowest concentration associated with the development of behavior problems is unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between very low-level mercury exposure during fetal development and behavior problems in child...

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Autores principales: Patel, Nimesh B., Xu, Yingying, McCandless, Lawrence C., Chen, Aimin, Yolton, Kimberly, Braun, Joseph, Jones, Robert L., Dietrich, Kim N., Lanphear, Bruce P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6325670/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30626382
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12940-018-0443-5
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author Patel, Nimesh B.
Xu, Yingying
McCandless, Lawrence C.
Chen, Aimin
Yolton, Kimberly
Braun, Joseph
Jones, Robert L.
Dietrich, Kim N.
Lanphear, Bruce P.
author_facet Patel, Nimesh B.
Xu, Yingying
McCandless, Lawrence C.
Chen, Aimin
Yolton, Kimberly
Braun, Joseph
Jones, Robert L.
Dietrich, Kim N.
Lanphear, Bruce P.
author_sort Patel, Nimesh B.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Mercury is toxic to the developing brain, but the lowest concentration associated with the development of behavior problems is unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between very low-level mercury exposure during fetal development and behavior problems in children. METHODS: We used data from 389 mothers and children in a prospective pregnancy and birth cohort study. We defined mean prenatal mercury concentration as the mean of total whole blood mercury concentrations in maternal samples collected at 16- and 26-weeks of gestation, delivery, and neonatal cord blood samples. We assessed parent-reported child behavior up to five times from two to 8 years of age using the Behavioral Assessment System for Children (BASC-2). At 8 years of age, we assessed self-reported child anxiety using the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS). We used multiple linear mixed models and linear regression models to estimate the association between mean prenatal mercury concentrations and child behavior and anxiety, respectively. RESULTS: The median prenatal total blood mercury concentrations was 0.67 μg/L. Overall, we did not find statistically significant associations between mean prenatal mercury concentrations and behavior problems scores, but a 2-fold increase in mercury concentrations at 16-weeks gestation was associated with 0.83 point (95% CI: 0.05, 1.62) higher BASC-2 anxiety scores. Maternal and cord blood mercury concentrations at delivery were associated with parent-reported anxiety at 8 years. CONCLUSION: We found limited evidence of an association between very-low level prenatal mercury exposure and behaviors in children, with an exception of anxiety.
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spelling pubmed-63256702019-01-11 Very low-level prenatal mercury exposure and behaviors in children: the HOME Study Patel, Nimesh B. Xu, Yingying McCandless, Lawrence C. Chen, Aimin Yolton, Kimberly Braun, Joseph Jones, Robert L. Dietrich, Kim N. Lanphear, Bruce P. Environ Health Research BACKGROUND: Mercury is toxic to the developing brain, but the lowest concentration associated with the development of behavior problems is unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between very low-level mercury exposure during fetal development and behavior problems in children. METHODS: We used data from 389 mothers and children in a prospective pregnancy and birth cohort study. We defined mean prenatal mercury concentration as the mean of total whole blood mercury concentrations in maternal samples collected at 16- and 26-weeks of gestation, delivery, and neonatal cord blood samples. We assessed parent-reported child behavior up to five times from two to 8 years of age using the Behavioral Assessment System for Children (BASC-2). At 8 years of age, we assessed self-reported child anxiety using the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS). We used multiple linear mixed models and linear regression models to estimate the association between mean prenatal mercury concentrations and child behavior and anxiety, respectively. RESULTS: The median prenatal total blood mercury concentrations was 0.67 μg/L. Overall, we did not find statistically significant associations between mean prenatal mercury concentrations and behavior problems scores, but a 2-fold increase in mercury concentrations at 16-weeks gestation was associated with 0.83 point (95% CI: 0.05, 1.62) higher BASC-2 anxiety scores. Maternal and cord blood mercury concentrations at delivery were associated with parent-reported anxiety at 8 years. CONCLUSION: We found limited evidence of an association between very-low level prenatal mercury exposure and behaviors in children, with an exception of anxiety. BioMed Central 2019-01-09 /pmc/articles/PMC6325670/ /pubmed/30626382 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12940-018-0443-5 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Patel, Nimesh B.
Xu, Yingying
McCandless, Lawrence C.
Chen, Aimin
Yolton, Kimberly
Braun, Joseph
Jones, Robert L.
Dietrich, Kim N.
Lanphear, Bruce P.
Very low-level prenatal mercury exposure and behaviors in children: the HOME Study
title Very low-level prenatal mercury exposure and behaviors in children: the HOME Study
title_full Very low-level prenatal mercury exposure and behaviors in children: the HOME Study
title_fullStr Very low-level prenatal mercury exposure and behaviors in children: the HOME Study
title_full_unstemmed Very low-level prenatal mercury exposure and behaviors in children: the HOME Study
title_short Very low-level prenatal mercury exposure and behaviors in children: the HOME Study
title_sort very low-level prenatal mercury exposure and behaviors in children: the home study
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6325670/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30626382
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12940-018-0443-5
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