Assessment of water contamination and health risk of endocrine disrupting chemicals in outdoor and indoor swimming pools
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Swimming is beneficial for human health and has several advantages over other activities for people of all ages and physical conditions. Therefore, it has become a popular leisure activity as well as sport around the world (Hang et al., 2016). At the same time, there is increasingly concern about the presence of emerging organic contaminants in swimming pool environment. Various organic contaminants have been reported in swimming pools including personal care products, disinfection by-products (DBPs), and organophosphate flame retardant (Chowdhury et al., 2014, Terasaki and Makino, 2008, Weng et al., 2014, Zwiener et al., 2007). However, the occurrence of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in swimming pool waters has been scarcely investigated.
EDCs are defined as exogenous agents interfering with the normal function of the endocrine system of organisms (Scholz and Klüver, 2009).
Among these EDCs, phenols, estrogens, progestogens, androgens, and pharmaceuticals have attracted over-whelming attention. Phenols, primarily consisting of 4-nonylphenol (4-NP), 4-octylphenol (4-OP), 4-tert-octylphenol (4-t-OP), and bisphenol A (BPA), are well-known endocrine disruptors interfering with endogenous estrogens through destroying estrogen receptors (Bergé et al., 2014, Liu et al., 2018). 4-NP and 4-t-OP, the important intermediates in the production and degradation of alkylphenol ethoxylates, have been used extensively in industry, agriculture, and daily life (Wang et al., 2012) and were more estrogenic, toxic, lipophilic, and persistent than its parent substances (Arslan, 2007, Isobe, 2001). BPA is the raw material used to produce resins and polymers, such as polycarbonate, epoxy, and polyacrylate, which are widely used in food containers, bottles, and dental sealants that many humans are exposed to daily (Caballero-Casero et al., 2016). The use of plastic infant bottles containing BPA was banned by the European Union in 2011 due to possible toxicological effects of BPA on infant health (Salgueiro-González et al., 2015). Steroids (including estrogens, progestogens, and androgens) were mainly excreted from the organisms, some of which were artificially synthesized as common hormone medications for human and livestock (Silva et al., 2012). The natural estrogens, estrone (E1) and 17β-estradiol (E2), are responsible for the maintenance of the health of reproductive tissues, breast, skin and brain (Manickum and John, 2014). 17α-ethynyl estradiol (EE2) is known as the main component of contraceptive drugs and is one of common hormone medications for livestock and aquaculture activities (Dan et al., 2017, Ye et al., 2013). Diethylstilbestrol (DES), dienestrol (DIE), and hexestrol (HEX) are widely used in hormone drugs for animals (de Oliveira et al., 2008, Qiao et al., 2016, Schreiber et al., 2019). Progestogens, including endogenous progestogen progesterone (PROG) and several synthetic progestogens such as levonorgestrel (LNG), norethindrone (NET), and medroxyprogesterone (MP), are an important group of steroid hormones. Progestogens are widely used in oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy in humans, in order to prevent pregnancy and treat all kinds of endocrine diseases (Runnalls et al., 2010). Androgens play an important role in tissue regeneration, especially of the skin, bones and muscles (Ying et al., 2002). In a recent study, testosterone (TES) and androstenedione (AN) were associated with increased risk of ovarian cancer (Ose et al., 2017). 19-nortestosterone (19-NT) decreased serotonin levels, altered dopamine receptor density and decreased the mRNA level of N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor subunits (Brännvall et al., 2005). Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) increased the risk of bladder cancer in men (Gil et al., 2019). Thus, it is necessary to further investigate the contamination of androgens in swimming pool waters. Caffeine is frequently used as medicinal material and food additive (Luo et al., 2019) and is a popular stimulant in body lotions, bath lotions, and creams (Lempart et al., 2018). Weng et al. reported that caffeine was identified as one of the compounds which were most likely to accumulate in 3 swimming pools in USA (Weng et al., 2014).
A vast number of papers confirmed the detection of EDCs in the aquatic environment (Jin et al., 2013). EDCs have been reported at concentrations ranging from 47 to 215 ng/L in Erhai Lake Catchment, China (Huang et al., 2016) and at concentrations ranging from not detected (ND) to 3.1 × 103 ng/L in Xiangjiang River, China (Luo et al., 2019). Three typical phenols (BPA, 4-NP, and 4-t-OP) were detected in drinking water supply chain of seven water plants in Suzhou, China (ND-350 ng/L) (Li et al., 2018) and estrogens (E1, E2, and EE2) were found in drinking water samples from three different sites in southern Germany (0.1–2 ng/L) (Kuch and Ballschmiter, 2001). Many papers have reported the presence of progestogens with concentrations ranging from a few ng/L to tens of thousands of ng/L in the aquatic environment (Bartelt-Hunt et al., 2012, Fernandez et al., 2007, Vulliet et al., 2008). Androgens and progestogens were ubiquitously detected in urban rivers in Beijing, China (Chang et al., 2009). Caffeine were detected at 0.38 ng/L in drinking water at Putrajaya residential area in Malaysia (Praveena et al., 2019). The occurrence of EDCs in the aquatic environment indicated that EDCs were ubiquitous.
The EDCs in pool water can come from a variety of sources, namely deliberate additions such as disinfectants and swimming equipments (i.e. kickboards and swimsuits) and bathers continuously releasing organic substances primarily through sweat, urine, saliva, and hair particles during their sport activities (Fantuzzi et al., 2018, Manasfi et al., 2017). Furthermore, when personal care products were used (for instance, caffeine-containing body lotions), they could be released from the skin into pool waters. The fill water may be one of the sources of the organic compounds in swimming pools (Fantuzzi et al., 2018, Teo et al., 2015). Once these compounds have entered the water, their fate will be mainly determined by the reaction and transfer processes within the pool system. These substances continuously accumulate and increase in pool waters with time, owing to the widespread use of recirculating pool water with little or even no replacement for months. Although these EDCs generally present in the water at low concentrations ranging from ng/L to mg/L, prolonged exposure to them may pose a serious health hazard to the physiological functions of humans and wildlife (Adeel et al., 2017, Hotchkiss et al., 2008, Sumpter, 1998), resulting in reproductive disturbances (Vajda et al., 2008), immune system damage (Miège et al., 2012), and population degradation (Kidd et al., 2007).
In this study, the occurrence of 20 EDCs including phenols, estrogens, progestogens, androgens, and pharmaceuticals in outdoor and indoor swimming pools were investigated and the possible sources of EDCs were analyzed. In particular, the study identified differences in levels of EDCs between indoor and outdoor pools, compared the concentrations of EDCs between downtown and outskirt pools, and discovered the factors responsible for these variations. Moreover, the relationships between water quality parameters and the concentrations of analyzed EDCs were investigated. Finally, taking sensitive subpopulations into account, quantitative risk assessments on the possible health risks of the human exposed to EDCs through various routes in swimming pools were carried out.
Section snippets
Sampling
The swimming pool water samples were collected from seven districts in Changsha, China, in August 2018. In total, 40 swimming pools (16 indoor pools and 24 outdoor pools) were sampled and belonged to fitness clubs, hotels, schools, and residential communities. A total of five fill water samples were randomly collected, all of which were supplied with city tap water. All samples were dechlorinated with 160 mg/L sodium thiosulfate and then transported to the laboratory (Lu et al., 2017).
Water
Occurrence of EDCs in swimming pool waters
This study, for the first time, demonstrated the presence of EDCs in swimming pool waters. The consequences obtained from the analysis of EDCs in swimming pools were shown in Table 1. Out of the 20 tested compounds, 8 EDCs (2 phenols, 3 estrogens, 1 pharmaceutical, and 2 progestogens) were detected with average concentrations ranging from ND to 5.60 μg/L. Androgen was not detected in sampled swimming pools. The detection frequencies of phenols, estrogens, caffeine, and progestogens were 57.5%,
Conclusions
In this study, the concentrations of 20 EDCs, consisting of 4 phenols, 6 estrogens, 4 progestogens, 5 androgens, and 1 pharmaceutical, in 40 indoor and outdoor swimming pools in Changsha, China were investigated. Out of them, two phenols (BPA and 4-t-OP), three estrogens (E2, EE2, and HEX), one pharmaceutical (caffeine), and two progestogens (PROG and LNG) were detected in the collected samples. The androgens were not detected. BPA and caffeine were the dominant EDCs in swimming pool water. The
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.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Special Fund for Agro-Scientific Research in the Public Interest of China (Grant No. 201503108).
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