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Association of urinary organophosphate metabolites with adult asthma patients: a cross-sectional population-based study

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Abstract

Human health is adversely affected by exposure to organophosphate (OP) pesticides. This study aims to investigate the correlation between urinary OP metabolites and the prevalence of asthma. In cross-sectional studies, data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) projects conducted between 2003–2008, 2011–2012, and 2015–2018 were analyzed. Multiple logistic regressions and restricted cubic spline (RCS) regressions were utilized to examine the relationship between four urinary OP metabolites, namely dimethyl phosphate (DMP), diethyl phosphate (DEP), dimethyl phosphorothioate (DMTP), and diethyl phosphorothioate (DETP), and the prevalence of asthma. Additionally, quantile g-computation (QG-C) regression was employed to evaluate the association between urinary OP metabolites (both individual and combined exposures) and asthma prevalence. The results showed that a total of 9316 adults, including 1298 participants with asthma, were included in the analysis. The median age of the participants was 47.37 years, and 50.27% were female. In the comprehensive model, the third tertile of DMP and DEP exhibited a positive association with asthma prevalence compared to the first tertile (odds ratio [95% confidence interval]: 1.26 [1.01–1.57], Ptrend = 0.036; and 1.25 [1.07–1.51], Ptrend = 0.008, respectively). Moreover, a linear relationship was observed between DMP, DEP, and asthma prevalence (P for nonlinearity = 0.320 and 0.553, respectively). The QG-C regression revealed a positive association between the mixture of urinary OP metabolites and asthma prevalence (OR = 1.04 [1.01–1.07], P = 0.025), with DEP contributing the most substantial effect (weight = 0.564). Our findings suggest that exposure to OP pesticides is associated with an increased prevalence of asthma, with DEP demonstrating the strongest impact.

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Data availability

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/search/default.aspx.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and all research subjects for their participation.

Funding

This study was supported by the Science and Technology Innovation 2025 Major Project of Ningbo (2019B10037).

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Author notes

  1. Ning Zhu and Shanhong Lin are co-first authors and contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease of Ningbo, The First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University, 59 Liuting Road, Ningbo, 315010, Zhejiang, China

    Ning Zhu, Weina Huang, Hang Yu & Chao Cao

  2. Department of Ultrasound, The First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo, China

    Shanhong Lin

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  1. Ning Zhu
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Contributions

Ning Zhu, Shanhong Lin, and Chao Cao conceived and designed the study. Ning Zhu, Hang Yu, and Weina Huang extracted the data and analyzed and interpreted the data. Ning Zhu, Chao Cao, and Shanhong Lin contributed to drafting and editing the paper and full access to all the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. All authors have given the final approval of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chao Cao.

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Not applicable. This study uses only secondary data analyses without any personal information identified using statistical data from NHANES website; no further ethical approval for conducting the present study is required.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Zhu, N., Lin, S., Huang, W. et al. Association of urinary organophosphate metabolites with adult asthma patients: a cross-sectional population-based study. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 112977–112987 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30174-8

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