Epidemiological study on the hepatotoxicity of occupational toluene exposure |
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Authors: | Christian Boewer Gottfried Enderlein Udo Wollgast Stefan Nawka Hubert Palowski Renate Bleiber |
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Affiliation: | (1) Innere Abteilung I St. Hedwig-Krankenhaus, Große Hamburger Straße 5/11, GDR-1040 Berlin, Germany;(2) Zentralinstitut für Arbeitsmedizin der DDR, Nöldnerstraße 40/42, GDR-1134 Berlin, Germany;(3) Abteilung füur Klinische Biochemie der Charité, Schumannstraße 20/21, GDR-1020 Berlin, Germany |
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Abstract: | Summary In a cross-sectional study of 181 male workers of a rotogravure printing plant, most of whom were exposed to toluene levels well above the GDR threshold limit values, 55 subjects revealed pathological liver screening values (activities of serum aspartate aminotransferase, alanine amino-transferase, gamma glutamyltransferase; liver size). The differential diagnostic examination showed in 51 out of these 55 subjects an association with competing factors such as alcohol abuse (78%) and overweight (40%), to a slight extent disorders of fat and carbohydrate metabolism and of the gallbladder. Drug intake did not play any role. The variance and regression analyses of the biochemical data have shown that alcohol significantly and considerably increases the activities of all three enzymes tested. Bodyweight had a similar, but less pronounced, significant effect. On the other hand, in subjects with a higher alcohol intake the activities of liver enzymes in highly toluene exposed subgroups were significantly and clearly lower than among slightly toluene exposed workers. |
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Keywords: | Toluene Hepatotoxicity Competing factors |
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