Human Health Risks of Persistent Organic Pollutant Exposures in the Canadian Arctic
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The persistent organic pollutants (POPs) refer to many different chemicals that, upon release into the environment, remain intact for several decades. These contaminants travel long distances through repeated cycles of deposition and evaporation, and eventually deposit in the Arctic regions. The purpose of this work was to examine the potential human health implications of POP exposures among the Canadian Inuit, using modelling and epidemiological approaches. Blood guideline values were developed for the organochlorine pesticides, chlordane and toxaphene, and the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) using the concept of biomonitoring equivalents (BEs), which are based on toxicity endpoints and toxicokinetic modelling to convert an oral reference dose to an equivalent blood concentration. The biomonitoring data from the Adult Inuit Health Survey (2007-2008) and the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS, Cycle 1 2007-2009) were compared with the derived guideline values to assess population-level risks of exposures for the Inuit and the general Canadian population, respectively. Epidemiological analyses were also conducted to explore if POPs were associated with diabetes and high cholesterol, using data from the Inuit Health Survey. A set of BE values were derived for chlordane isomers and metabolite, three abundant toxaphene isomers, and the PCBs. The derived values are in a similar range of the BEs of other POPs in the literature. Among the Inuit, a large percentage exceeded the trans-nonachlor guideline value, particularly among the elderly. Fewer exceedances were observed for cis-nonachlor and oxychlordane, none for toxaphene, and minimally for the PCBs. In comparison, no exceedances for any of the POPs were observed in the general Canadian population. Highest vs. lowest quartile exposures to PCBs and p,p’-DDE were associated with increased risk of diabetes and an increase in fasting glucose among the Inuit. In addition, PCBs were associated with increased risk of high cholesterol, and higher levels of serum triglycerides, total cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), but not high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). The results of this work suggest that exposures to POPs remain a potential health concern among the Canadian Inuit. Future research efforts should be devoted to collecting updated contaminant concentrations for the Inuit, measuring contaminants in prepared food samples, conducting cohort studies on contaminant exposures and health outcomes, and assessing the effects of chemical mixtures using statistical approaches and toxicokinetic modelling.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".