• Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.154-161
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• 2017

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in public recognition of parabens on Twitter and the research status of parabens related to toothpaste. Methods: Tweet information between 2010 and October 2016 was collected by an automatic web crawler and examined according to tweet frequency, key words (2012-October 2016), and issue tweet detection analyses to reveal changes in public recognition of parabens on Twitter. To investigate the research status of parabens related to toothpaste, queries such as "paraben," "paraben and toxicity," "paraben and (toothpastes or dentifrices)," and "paraben and (toothpastes or dentifrices) and toxicity" were used. Results: The number of tweets concerning parabens sharply increased when parabens in toothpaste emerged as a social issue (October 2014), and decreased from 2015 onward. However, toothpaste and its related terms were continuously included in the core key words extracted from tweets from 2015. They were not included in key words before 2014, indicating that the emergence of parabens in toothpaste as a social issue plays an important role in public recognition of parabens in toothpaste. The issue tweet analysis also confirmed the change in public recognition of parabens in toothpaste. Despite the expansion of public recognition of parabens in toothpaste, there are only seven research articles on the topic in PubMed. Conclusions: The general public clearly recognized parabens in toothpaste after emergence of parabens in toothpaste as a social issue. Nevertheless, the scientific information on parabens in toothpaste is very limited, suggesting that the efforts of dental scientists are required to expand scientific knowledge related to parabens in oral hygiene measures.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.323-333
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• 2009

Parabens are alkyl esters of p-hydroxybenzoic acid, which are widely used in foods, cosmetics, and pharmaceutic products as preservatives. Absorbed parabens are metabolized fastly and excreted. Actually human body is exposed to complex mixture of parabens. Safety assessment at various toxicological end points revealed parabens have a little acute, subacute and chronic toxicities. Some reports have argued that as parabens have estrogenic activity, they are associated with the incidence of breast cancer through dermal absorption by cosmetics. There is an inference that antiandrogenic activity of parabens may give rise to a lesion of male reproductive system, but also there is an contrary. At cellular level, parabens may inhibit mitochondrial function of sperms and androgen production in testis, but also there is an contrary. Parabens seem to have little or no toxicity in embryonic development. Parabens can cause hemolysis, membrane permeability change in mitochondria and apoptosis, suggesting cellular toxicity of parabens. Parabens evoked endocrine disruption in several fish species and have toxic effect on small invertebrates and microbes. Therefore, the toxicity of parabens should be considered as a potentially toxic chemical in the freshwater environment. In conclusion, though parabens may be considered as a low toxic chemical, more definite data are required concerning the endocrine disrupting effect of parabens on human body and aquatic animals according to route and term of exposure as well as the residual concentration of parabens.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.229-237
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• 2008

Recently, parabens have been believed to act as xenoestrogens, an identified class of endocrine disruptors (EDs). These environmental compounds are the most well-known as preservatives in many commercial products, including food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. It has been demonstrated that the human health risks of parabens result from a long-term exposure to skin in which this chemical group is rapidly absorbed through the skin. On the other hand, parabens are also completely absorbed from gastrointestinal tract. It has reported that these substances possess several biological effects in which inhibitory property involved in membrane transports and mitochondrial functions is considered to be important for their action. Testing of parabens has revealed that estrogen-like activities of these chemicals are much less potent than natural estrogen, $17{\beta}$ estradiol (E2). Additionally, the estrogenicity of individual paraben- compounds is distinct depending upon their biochemical structure. Recent findings of paraben-estrogenic activities have shown that these compounds may affect breast cancer incidence in women, suggesting adverse ecological outcomes of this environmental group on human and animal health. Although the biological and toxicological effects of parabens have been demonstrated in many previous studies, possible mechanism(s) of their action are required to be explored in order to bring the better understanding in the detrimental impacts of parabens in human and wildlife. There have several different types of parabens which are the most widely used as preservatives. These include methyl-paraben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben and p-hydroxybenzoic acid, a major metabolite of parabens. In this review, we summarize current database based on in vitro and in vivo assays for estrogenic activities and health risk assessment of paraben- EDs which have been published previously.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.197-203
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• 2006

Parabens are most wildly used in food, cosmetics and pharmaceutic products as preservatives caused of safety and cheap. we had examined that paraben had estrogenic activity through the in vivo and in vitro experiments in last year. We demonstrated that most of parabens(ethyl, butyl, propyl, isobutyl, isopropyl) increased significantly uterus weight as well as induced proliferation of MCF-7 cell and binding of estrogen receptor as endocrine disrupter compounds. In this study, we evaluated that whether parabens have effect on male reproductive system or not. the male rats were administrated parabens by oral injection then examined separation of preputial day for $PND23\simPND52$. As the results, most parabens delayed pubertal development compare to control group. The separation of preputial day of Butyl and Propyl parabens at high concentration were PND 44 days and PND 45days compared to control group as PND 40 days. Even though, parabens as endocrine disrupter wildly spread in food, cosmetics and pharmaceutic products, we didn't have the safe guideline. In abroad, they are re-evaluating safety assessment for parabens. In conclusion, parabens delayed pubertal development in juvenile parabens are consider as endocrine disrupter chemicals.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.8-12
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• 1984

Increasing the oil volume in the oil : water mixtures using isopropyl myristate, oleic acid as oils, the solubilities of methyl, propyl and butyl parabens and the MICs (minimum hibitory concentrations) to E. coli were increased. But in liquid paraffin, the solubility was reversed. The relation between MIC and solubility of parabens had constant factor of 0.7 as saturation fraction percent. The solubility of methyl paraben was crossed over in those of propyl and butyl parabens, when the oil volume was increased. When the oil was used over the cross-over point, methyl paraven was useful to preserve the systems, and below the cross-over point the more lipophilic propyl and/or butyl parabens were effective.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.182-189
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• 1994

The effect of lipophilicity on the mechanisms of drug absorption through biomembranes was investigated empolying HPLC system and the fluorescence technique. Human erythrocyte ghost membranes were used as a model biomembrane. A series of four parabens (methyl, ethyl, rpopyl, and butyl) and p-hydroxybenzoic acid were used as the model drugs for lipophilicities and their partition coefficients were measured in Sorensen's phosphate buffer solution (pH 5)/octanol system. Absorption amount of parabens through erythrocyte ghost membranes increased with an increase of lipophilicity resulted from the addition of methylene group to the n-alkyl chain of parabens. And the effect of parabens on the fluidity of ghost membrane also increased with an increase of their lipophilicities.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.561-567
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• 2012

Objectives: Parabens are widely used as antimicrobial agents in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics as well as by the food industry. Parabens have been reported to show weak estrogenic activity and be related to health effects such as allergic reactions and skin and breast cancer. We evaluated an online solid phase extraction (SPE) method coupled with LC-MS/MS technique using free and conjugated parent parabens in human urine for assessing human exposure to parabens. Methods: We employed LC/MS/MS through online solid phase extraction and column-switching techniques and analyzed free and conjugated parabens as biomarkers of human exposure. Four major parabens, methyl-paraben (MP), ethyl-paraben (EP), propyl-paraben (PP) and butyl-paraben (BP), were analyzed. Method validation was performed by sensitivity, accuracy, precision and comparison of the results of online SPE with offline SPE. Results: The limits of detection (LOD) were in the range of 0.2-2 ng/mL, and actual limits of quantification (LOQ) were in the range of 0.7-6 ng/mL urine, depending upon the compound. Accuracy was in the range of 98.3-106.4%, and precision was in the range of 1.3-8.7% (CV) depending upon the compound. We found a good correlation between the results of analysis by online SPE method and that by off-line SPE method. Conclusions: The online SPE method showed proper LOD and validated accuracy, precision and good correlation with the offline method for analyzing parabens in urine.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.311-318
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• 1991

Corneal permeability of various n-alkyl p-hydroxybenzoates (parabens) was studied in vitro using excised rabbit corneas, and the effect of lipophilicity of parabens on the corneal permeability was also investigated. Permeability coefficients were obtained from the least-square linear regression after the steady state had been reached. Lipophilicity of parabens was calculated by distribution coefficients determined in octanol-S | $12{\phi}{\parallel}$) rensen's buffer solution (pH 5.0). The relationship between lipophilicity and corneal permeability of parabens was not linear, but the optimum lipophilicity for the maximum permeation was found. The influence of tween 80 on corneal permeability of methyl and butylparaben was not significant.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.1131-1136
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• 2013

Parabens, the esters of p-hydroxybenzoic acid, have been widely used as antimicrobial preservatives in cosmetic products, drugs, and processed foods and beverages. However, some parabens have been shown to have weak estrogenic effects through in vivo and in vitro studies. Because such widespread use has raised concerns about the potential human health risks associated with exposure to parabens, we developed a simultaneous analytical method to quantify 4 parabens (methyl, ethyl, propyl, and butyl) in human urine, by using solid-phase extraction and high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. This method showed good specificity, linearity ($R^2$ > 0.999), accuracy (92.2-112.4%), precision (0.9-9.6%, CV), and recovery (95.7-102.0%). The LOQs for the 4 parabens were 1.0, 0.5, 0.2, and 0.5 ng/mL, respectively. This method could be used for quick and accurate analysis of a large number of human samples in epidemiological studies to assess the prevalence of human exposure to parabens.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.166-185
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• 2002

Aroma oils extracted from the natural material have antibacterial, antivirus, antiinflammatory, and preservative effect. The preserve efficacy testing between aroma oils and parabens as an artificial preservative had been performed and then it had been suggested that aroma oil was possibile to apply to the cosmetics. Aroma oils were pine, rosemary, lemon and eucalyptus, and parabens were methylparaben, blitylparaben. Antiseptic concentrations of aroma oils and parabens having 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8, 1.0wt% were tested respectively. Escherichia coil(ATCC No.8739), Pseudomonas aeruginosa(ATCC No. 9027) which are gram-negative and Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC No. 6538), Bacillus subtilis(ATCC No. 6633) which are gram-positive were used as the test organisms. Disk paper and broth dilution methods were used as the methods of preservative efficacy testing. The antibacterial activity of aroma oils and parabens for gram-positive were better than that for gram-negative. For the antibacterial activity aroma oils were better than parabens. Among the aroma oils, rosemary and pine having superior antibacterial activity were selected and blended to illuminate if there is any synergy, There was synergical effect and optimum ratio of aroma blend is 3 : 1(rosemary pine) in this study.