Plasticizers like BPA and DEHP to influence autism and ADHD in children

Investigators measured the efficiency of glucuronidation in three groups of children, 66 ASD, 46 with ADHD and 37 healthy controls. The children were recruited from the clinics of Rutgers-NJ Medical School. A urine specimen was collected from each child. Multiple mass spectrometric analyses including the complete metabolome were determined and used to derive values for the efficiency of glucuronidation for 12 varied glucuronidation pathways including those for BPA and MEHP.

The key findings of the study are

• Both fold differences and metabolome analyses showed that the three groups of children were metabolically different from each other.

• Of the 12 pathways examined, only the BPA and DEHP pathways discriminated between the three groups.

• Glucuronidation efficiencies for BPA were reduced by 11% for ASD (p = 0.020) and 17% for ADHD (p<0.001) compared to controls. DEHP showed similar, but not significant trends.

Researchers concluded that “ASD and ADHD are clinically and metabolically different but share a reduction in the efficiency of detoxification for both BPA and DEHP with the reductions for BPA being statistically significant.”

Reference: Stein TP, Schluter MD, Steer RA, Ming X (2023) Bisphenol-A and phthalate metabolism in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. PLoS ONE 18(9): e0289841. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289841.