Organophosphate flame retardants and incident type 2 diabetes: Integrating population evidence, mechanistic insights, and effect modification by healthy lifestyle.

Authors

Xueyan Wu, Yilin Zhou, Yue Nie, Haoran Xu, Hengrui Liu, Mengke Cheng, Yao Guo, Fangyuan Lin, Xin Tang, Peihan Chen, Dandan Wei, Jian Hou, Wenqian Huo, Xiaotian Liu, Linlin Li, Chongjian Wang, Caini Fan, Haiying Chen, Tian Chen, Zhenxing Mao

Published in

Journal of hazardous materials. Volume 516. Pages 143347. Aug 20, 2026. Epub Aug 20, 2026.

Abstract

Higher exposure to organophosphate flame retardants (OPFRs) may contribute to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), but prospective evidence, lifestyle modification, and biological plausibility remain insufficiently characterized. We conducted a nested case-control study within the Henan Rural Cohort to evaluate associations between OPFRs exposure and incident T2DM. Cox models, WQS, QGC, BKMR, and an adaptive elastic-net-based environmental risk score were used to assess single and mixed OPFRs exposure. Baseline and trajectory-based healthy lifestyle scores were applied to evaluate joint effects, and signed Wald χ² decomposition quantified contributions of OPFRs and lifestyle domains. Mechanistic evidence was integrated from in vitro experiments and toxicogenomic analyses, including RNA-sequencing, network toxicology, molecular docking, and GEO re-analysis, to evaluate EGFR-related signaling and build an integrative adverse outcome pathway. Higher urinary OPFRs, particularly TPHP, were associated with increased T2DM risk, and OPFRs mixtures showed a linear dose-response relationship with T2DM risk. High OPFRs exposure combined with unhealthy or deteriorating lifestyle trajectories conferred the greatest risk, with OPFRs plus lifestyle explaining 55.36% of total model χ². In HepG₂ cells, TPHP impaired glucose consumption and downregulated EGFR, whereas EGFR overexpression alleviated the TPHP-associated abnormal glucose consumption. EGFR overexpression was confirmed at both mRNA and protein levels. The p-AKT/total AKT results provided supportive evidence of AKT-related signaling changes, whereas total GLUT2 protein abundance was not significantly altered. Molecular docking supported potential TPHP-EGFR binding affinity of -8.5 kcal/mol, and GEO analyses provided external supportive evidence that EGFR expression tended to be higher in healthier lifestyle-related conditions. These findings suggest that mixed OPFRs exposure, dominated by TPHP, was associated with higher incident T2DM risk, partly attenuated by healthier lifestyle trajectories, supporting combined exposure-reduction and lifestyle-based prevention strategies.

PMID:
42632240
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 23 Aug 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.