Benzene and lipid asset

Background: In relation to the medico-social and medico-legal aspects of urban pollution we studied the effects of benzene present in urban pollution on outdoor workers exposed to physical, chemical, and psychosocial stressors. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the possible correlation between the levels of benzene and its urinary metabolites in the blood (Trans muconic acid and S-phenylmecapturic acid) and the parameters of the lipid structure: Total cholesterol, High Density Lipoprotein (HDL), Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL), triglycerides and blood sugar. Materials and methods: From an initial group 1,500 we selected a group of 199 subjects. A blood sample was taken for each worker to assess blood benzene levels and urinalysis to determine the levels of trans, trans-muconic acid and S-phenyl mercapturic acid. We compared the mean and standard deviation of the following lipid parameters: Total Cholesterol, HDL, LDL, Triglycerides and glycemia with benzene and urinary metabolites; we excluded the workers with confounding factors and performed the Pearson’s correlation between lipid parameters and urinary metabolites in the total sample and also among age, seniority, sex and BMI; multiple linear regression was performed for the evaluation of the main confounding factors. Results: We did not find a statistically significant alteration between the values of the lipid structure between the two groups of workers and the parameters of benzene. Triglycerides and HDL are statistically significantly influenced by sex (p=0.001) and (p=0.00) and BMI (p=0.00) and (p=0.001) as well as total cholesterol is influenced in a statistically significant way from age (p=0.003) and blood glucose from BMI (p=0.002) A statistically significant difference was found among the averages of phenylmercapturic S acid values of traffic policeman and police drivers (p<0.05), where higher values were among drivers. Conclusions: The results suggest that occupational exposure to levels of benzene, present in urban pollution, would appear not to influence the values of the lipid parameters in traffic policeman.