Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) levels in the blood of pure vegetarians (vegans)

Abstract

Intake of many persistent organic pollutants (POPs) including dioxins, dibenzofurans and PCBs is almost exclusively from gastrointestinal ingestion of animal fats in the diet. With polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) brominated flame retardants (BFRs), no consensus exists at present as to the extent of intake from food, from indoor dust or other routes of intake. Vegans, or pure vegetarians, were previously found to have low body burden of dioxins and dibenzofurans in blood. Data reported here for the first time show a trend towards lower PBDE levels with longer time periods without ingestion of food of animal origin in 8 adult residents of the United States. A stronger relationship between lower PBDE levels and time without meat, specifically, is consistent with substantial PBDE intake from meat relative to fish or dairy products in Americans. These vegans had somewhat lower PBDE levels with a range 12.4–127 and a median 23.9 ppb than published reports of US general population samples which had a range of 4–366 and median of 26 ppb. Our findings suggest that food of animal origin may be a major but not the sole contributor to human body burden of PBDEs.

Keywords:

• Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs)
• persistent organic pollutants
• vegetarian, vegans, food

Acknowledgements

We thank the CS Fund, Warsh-Mott Legacy, the Kundstadter Family Foundation and the Samuel Rubin Foundation for their generous funding.