Evaluation of Organic Environmental Pollutants Detected in Human Milk

Human milk is an important food source for infant because it contains a large number of nutritional substances, growth and immune factors. However, human milk may be contaminated with environmental pollutants when mothers are exposed to these pollutants. In particular, lipophilic organic pollutants are likely to accumulate in milk fat. Therefore, the determination of the organic pollutants levels in human milk is necessary to estimate the health risks of these pollutants to milk-fed infants. For this purpose, a lot of reports for the measurements of environmental pollutants in milk samples have been published. In this review, we summarized the concentrations of harmful organic environmental pollutants such as polychlorinated organic compounds (PCOCs), polybrominated compounds, perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and endocrine disrupting phenols in human milk samples. Also, we described the noteworthy results of several evaluative studies such as time trend and regional difference of pollutant levels.