Human Exposure of Fipronil Insecticide and the Associated Health Risk

Alzheimer's dis ease (AD) is a leading cause of mortality in the developed world with 70% risk attributable to genetics. The remaining 30% of AD risk is hypothesized to include environmental factors and human lifestyle patterns. Environmental factors possibly include inorganic and organic hazards, exposure to toxic metals (aluminium, copper), pesticides (organochlorine and organophosphate insecticides), industrial chemicals (flame retardants) and air pollutants (particulate matter). Long term exposures to these environmental contaminants together with bioaccumulation over an individual's life-time are speculated to induce neuroinflammation and neuropathology paving the way for developing AD. Epidemiologic associations between environmental contaminant exposures and AD are still limited. However, many in vitro and animal studies have identified toxic effects of environmental contaminants at the cellular level, revealing alterations of pathways and metabolisms associated with AD that warrant further investigations. This review provides an overview of in vitro, animal and epidemiological studies on the etiology of AD, highlighting available data supportive of the long hypothesized link between toxic environmental exposures and development of AD pathology.

Abstract Under EU legislation (Article 32, Regulation (EC) No 396/2005), EFSA provides an annual report which analyses pesticide residue levels in foods on the European market. The analysis is based on data from the official national control activities carried out by EU Member States, Iceland and Norway and includes a subset of data from the EU‐coordinated control programme which uses a randomised sampling strategy. For 2018, 95.5% of the overall 91,015 samples analysed fell below the maximum residue level (MRL), 4.5% exceeded this level, of which 2.7% were non‐compliant, i.e. samples exceeding the MRL after taking into account the measurement uncertainty. For the subset of 11,679 samples analysed as part of the EU‐coordinated control programme, 1.4% exceeded the MRL and 0.9% were non‐compliant. Table grapes and sweet peppers/bell peppers were among the food products that most frequently exceeded the MRLs. To assess acute and chronic risk to consumer health, dietary exposure to pesticide residues was estimated and compared with health‐based guidance values. The findings suggest that the assessed levels for the food commodities analysed are unlikely to pose concern for consumer health. However, a number of recommendations are proposed to increase the efficiency of European control systems (e.g. optimising traceability), thereby continuing to ensure a high level of consumer protection.

Fipronil, an N-phenylpyrazole with a trifluoromethylsulfinyl substituent, initiated the second generation of insecticides acting at the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor to block the chloride channel. The first generation includes the polychlorocycloalkanes alpha-endosulfan and lindane. In this study, we examine the mechanisms for selective toxicity of the sulfoxide fipronil and its sulfone metabolite and desulfinyl photoproduct relative to their target site interactions in vitro and ex vivo and the importance in fipronil action of biooxidation to the sulfone. Differences in GABA receptor sensitivity, assayed by displacement of 4'-ethynyl-4-n-[2, 3-3H2]propylbicycloorthobenzoate ([3H]EBOB) from the noncompetitive blocker site, appear to be a major factor in fipronil being much more toxic to the insects (housefly and fruit fly) than to the vertebrates (humans, dogs, mice, chickens, quail, and salmon) examined; in insects, the IC50s range from 3 to 12 nM for fipronil and its sulfone and desulfinyl derivatives, while in vertebrates, the IC50 average values are 1103, 175, and 129 nM for fipronil, fipronil sulfone, and desulfinyl fipronil, respectively. The insect relative to the vertebrate specificity decreases in the following order: fipronil > lindane > desulfinyl fipronil > fipronil sulfone > alpha-endosulfan. Ex vivo inhibition of [3H]EBOB binding in mouse brain is similar for fipronil and its sulfone and desulfinyl derivatives at the LD50 dose, but surprisingly, at higher doses fipronil can be lethal without detectably blocking the [3H]EBOB site. The P450 inhibitor piperonyl butoxide, acting in houseflies, increases the metabolic stability and effectiveness of fipronil and the sulfone but not those of the desulfinyl compound, and in mice it completely blocks the sulfoxide to sulfone conversion without altering the poisoning. Thus, the selective toxicity of fipronil and fipronil-derived residues is due in part to the higher potency of the parent compound at the insect versus the mammalian GABA receptor but is also dependent on the relative rates of conversion to the more persistent and less selective sulfone metabolite and desulfinyl photoproduct.