Romanian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences
 

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ESTROGENIC BURDEN OF PARABENS USED IN CHILD CARE PRODUCTS

NICOLETA CARMEN PURDEL1*, ANCA ELENA SIRBU2, FLORICA NICOLESCU1

1.University of Medicine and Pharmacy Carol Davila, Bucharest, Romania, Faculty of Pharmacy, Toxicology Department, 6 Traian Vuia st., Bucharest, Romania
2.University of Medicine and Pharmacy Carol Davila, Bucharest, Romania, Faculty of Medicine, Elias University Hospital, Endocrinology Department, Bucharest

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Parabens are extensively used in personal care products as preservatives but the current regulation of cosmetics (Directive 76/768/EEC) did not take into account their potentially endocrine-disrupting effects. Therefore we performed an assessment of the most used parabens (methyl - and n-propylparaben) investigating their estrogenic burden. Systemic exposure dose via cosmetics was estimated using two approaches: ConsExpo modeling and bio-monitoring data. The endocrine-disrupting effects (uterotrophic assay) were selected as the paraben’s critical endpoints and using the assumption of the dose addition for combined effects of parabens, due to their toxicological similarity to estradiol, exposure was calculated in terms of estradiol and compared with the physiological ranges.