Impact of fermented brown rice with Aspergillus oryzae (FEBRA) intake and concentrations of polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs) in blood of humans from Japan

The isotope dilution technique was applied for the analysis of new polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs) calibration standard (both labeled and non-labeled) using high-resolution gas chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRGC–HRMS). The relative response factor (RRF) and relative standard deviation (RSD) for new calibration standard in Finnigan Thermo Electron (MAT-95XL) and Micromass (Autospec Ultima) were more or less identical with mean RRF (0.9882), RSD (0.0865) and CV% of (8.75). The results also revealed for DeBDE-209 quantification; labeled DeBDE-209 is essential. Furthermore, we recommend on column injection technique with a thin film instead of splitless injection in order to reduce the thermal degradation of DeBDE-209 and formation of octabromodibenzofurans (OBDF). Besides, analysis of human blood (n = 156) of FEBRA-intake and non-FEBRA-intake individuals elucidated frequent detection of eighteen PBDE congeners. The average PBDE concentrations in non-FEBRA intake and FEBRA-intake humans were 6000–11 000 (mean: 8400) and 5400–15 000 (mean: 9900) respectively on pg/g fat basis. Although FEBRA-intake individuals showed slightly greater PBDEs, computer-normalized concentrations of TeBDE-47 corroborate FEBRA-intake individual from four family showed reduced concentrations. The contamination profiles of PBDEs varied in between family, gender as well as geography. International comparison with predominant PBDE congener (TeBDE-47) prevailed lower levels in Japan when compared to Korea, Germany and USA nevertheless, congener specific profiles were different which is in accordance with different technical PBDE usage in between countries.