Urinary concentrations of acrylamide (AA) and N-acetyl-S-(2-carbamoylethyl)-cysteine (AAMA) and associations with demographic factors in the South Korean population

Acrylamide (AA) and N-acetyl-S-(2-carbamoylethyl)-cysteine (AAMA) are important urinary biomarkers of acrylamide exposure in human biomonitoring, because AA is classified as a probable carcinogen in humans.In this study, urinary AA and AAMA were assessed in the South Korean adult population aged 18–69, based on the Korean National Human Biomonitoring Survey conducted in 2009. Urinary metabolites in samples were analyzed with LC–MS/MS system.Relying on data from 1873 representative South Korean adults, the population-weighted geometric means of urinary AA and AAMA concentrations were 6.8 ng/ml (95% CI: 6.4–7.3), and 30.0 ng/ml (95% confidence interval (CI): 28.2–31.8), respectively. The creatinine-adjusted geometric means of AA and AAMA were 6.2 μg/g creatinine (95% CI: 5.8–6.7) and 26.4 μg/g creatinine (95% CI: 24.9–28.0), respectively. When covariates for predictors of urinary metabolites were adjusted simultaneously in a log-linear multiple regressions, the strongest predictors of urinary AA were education (OR = 1.08–1.28; 95% CI: 1.11–1.48; p = 0.0024) and age (OR = 0.66–0.84; 95% CI: 0.54–0.97; p = 0.0003), and those of urinary AAMA were smoking status (OR = 1.16–2.63; 95% CI: 0.98–3.08; p = 0.001) and education (OR = 1.12–1.19; 95% CI: 1.02–1.38; p = 0.0425). The ratio of current/never smokers for urinary AA was 1.3, whereas the same ratio for urinary AAMA was 3.0.These findings suggested that most South Koreans had detectable levels of AA and AAMA (98.7% and 99.4%, respectively) in their urine and that the body burden of AA and AAMA varied according to demographic, geographic, and lifestyle (smoking) factors.