Background

Evidence suggests that endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) may perturb the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, which has a major role in brain development. We aimed to evaluate the effects of childhood exposure to organophosphate pesticides, phenols, and phthalate metabolites, on urinary glucocorticosteroids and inattention in childhood.

Methods

We used data from the Human Early-Life Exposome (HELIX) cohort (2013-2016) and the parametric g-formula to estimate associations between EDCs, glucocorticosteroids, and hit reaction time standard error (HRT-SE), a measure of inattention, and tested for possible effect modification by sex.

Results

We observed a positive marginal contrast (MC) for exposure increases from the 10th to the 90th percentile for methyl-paraben (MC: 0.042 and confidence interval (CI): (0.013, 0.071)), and the phthalate metabolites oxo-MiNP (MC: 0.023 and CI: (0.003, 0.044)), oh-MiNP (MC: 0.039 and CI: (0.001, 0.076)), and MEHP (MC: 0.036 and CI: (0.008, 0.063)), on HRT-SE, indicating lower attention. Several EDCs were also associated with a positive MC for cortisone, cortisol, and corticosterone production. Increased levels of the glucocorticosteroids were not associated with HRT-SE, although we found a possible effect modification by sex.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that multiple EDCs might interfere with inattention and with the homeostasis of the HPA axis.