Abstract
Previous studies have reported that exposures to metals are associated with bone health, but are mostly restricted to a few of the most frequent hazardous metals. The effects of barium (Ba) are not fully understood. A cross-sectional study involving 1532 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 2013–2016) was conducted. Generalized linear model (GLM) and restricted cubic spline (RCS) were applied to evaluate the relationship of urinary Ba exposure with BMDs. According to the GLM analyses, urinary Ba was adversely correlated with total BMD (percent change: −0.75; 95% CI: −1.21, −0.29) and lumbar BMD (percent change: −0.76; 95% CI: −1.47, −0.04). Compared with the lowest tertile of Ba levels, the percentage change of T3 was −2.06 (−3.36, −0.73) for total BMD and was −2.39 (−4.51, −0.24) for lumbar BMD, showing a significant linear trend (P trend = 0.014 and P trend = 0.047, respectively). The RCS models showed a monotonically decreasing relationship of urinary Ba with total BMD and lumbar BMD. Moreover, the positive joint effects were observed between Pb (lead) and Ba, and Cd (cadmium) and Ba on BMDs. According to our findings, exposure to Ba may lead to a decrease in BMDs. Possible positive joint effects of Ba and Pb, and Ba and Cd on BMDs were found. Exposure to Ba may contribute to poor skeletal health.
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The datasets of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey are available at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/index.htm.
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Acknowledgements
The authors really appreciate the participants for their support and the staff for their contributions. We are also grateful to Guangxi Medical University Clinical Epidemiology Research Center for Multifactorial Diseases and Guangxi Colleges and Universities Key Laboratory of Prevention and Control of Highly Prevalent Diseases.
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This research was supported by Guangxi Key Research Program (AB17195012).
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Peng Tang: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing—original draft preparation, writing—review and editing, visualization; Qian Liao: investigation, methodology, writing—review and editing; Huishen Huang: investigation, writing—review and editing; Qian Chen: investigation; Jun Liang: investigation; Ying Tang: investigation; Yong Zhou: supervision, conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing; Xiaoyun Zeng: supervision, conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing; and Xiaoqiang Qiu: supervision, conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing.
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Tang, P., Liao, Q., Huang, H. et al. Effects of urinary barium exposure on bone mineral density in general population. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 106038–106046 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29791-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29791-0