Diethyl Phthalate 191
important route from fragrances left on clothes from laundry detergents.
Another major route is inhalation. Fragrances detected in air, which by their
very nature are volatile chemicals that can evaporate and reach the nose so that
the olfactory system can recognize them, easily enter through the lungs to the
blood stream [76].
Musks in Food
Exposure to synthetic musks can also occur through flavored drinks and food.
Synthetic flavors are created by highly specialized food flavor experts and are
increasingly being introduced into our daily diet and drinks. Flavored drinks
have gained enormous popularity among fast food chains, including various so
called fruit drinks in the form of water, ice, shakes, and soft drinks. No real
information is available on the nature of these chemicals. Most information
regarding synthetic musk residues is on fish and shellfish species as the fresh
water and marine ecosystems receive the greatest inputs of these compounds
(from sewage and wasterwater discharges) [75].
Synthetic musks have endocrine disrupting properties – that is, they are
capable of interacting with the normal functioning of human hormonal sys
tems. Both tonalide and galaxolide can bind to ERs (estrogen receptors) in cells
and can be both estrogenic and anti‐estrogenic, depending on the type of cell
and the type of ER involved [76]. Several of the musks have been shown to
mimic the action of the hormone estrogen in experiments with human cell
lines [67]. In in vitro tests, musk xylene, musk ketone, a major metabolite of
musk xylene (p‐amino‐musk xylene), and the polycyclic musk fragrance
tonalide have been shown to increase the proliferation rate of human MCF‐7
breast cancer cells, demonstrating their ability to mimic estrogen [67,76].
Although a causal relationship has not been established, higher levels of
musk xylene and musk ketone concentrations in women’s blood have been
correlated to higher rates of miscarriage [67,68]. Exposure to tonalide also has
been shown to cause acute liver damage in rodents. As we have shown in
Chapter 1, many perfumes are highly mutagenic [75,76].
Diethyl Phthalate
Phthalates and phthalate esters are a large group of compounds used as liquid
plasticizers and are found in a wide range of products of household items
including plastics, coatings, perfumes, personal care products, makeup, cos
metics, and medical tubing. These compounds have been long‐standing ingre
dients in plastic industry products and were first introduced as additives in
the1920s and were in widespread use in poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) in the 1930s
and later (reviewed in Ref. [7]). Phthalates are not chemically bound to the
