Abstract
Ethylene oxide (EO) is a common chemical contaminant in the environment and associated with the occurrence of multiple clinical diseases. This study aimed to explore the association of hemoglobin ethylene oxide (HbEO) levels with the risk of albuminuria in a representative sample of US adults. In total, 3523 participants from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2013–2016 were enrolled and classified into four groups based on HbEO. Restricted cubic spline plots and multiple logistic regression were performed to investigate the connection between HbEO levels and albuminuria, and mediation analysis was applied to elucidate the potential mechanism for the effect of HbEO concentrations on albuminuria. In the results, compared with the extreme quartile of HbEO levels, the weighted prevalence of albuminuria was significantly increased in participants with highest quartile (Q4 vs Q1, 11.2% vs 8.1%). Restricted cubic spline plots revealed that the risk of albuminuria raised non-linearly and positively with elevated HbEO level. After adjusting for confounders, the logistic regression suggested that the risk of albuminuria was enhanced by 12% for each one-unit increase in log-2-transformed HbEO (OR = 1.12, 95% CI, 1.03–1.22, P = 0.007). Moreover, the multivariate ORs (95% CIs) on albuminuria was increased across the increasing HbEO quartiles (Q4 vs Q1, OR = 1.54, 95% CI, 1.09–2.17; P for trend = 0.029). Furthermore, the impact of high HbEO level on albuminuria was partially related to inflammation markers, including white blood cells (17.2%), neutrophils (22.1%), and lymphocytes (19.5%). To sum up, our study identified that high HbEO levels increased the risk of albuminuria in representative population of US adults, and several inflammatory mediators might be potentially involved in EO-associated albuminuria.
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Data availability
Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study, and the data can be found here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/index.htm.
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Funding
This work was supported by the Hebei Provincial Specialty Capacity Building and Specialty Leader Training Project ([2018]674), the Hebei Provincial Excellent Talents in Clinical Medicine Training Project ([2019]139), the Hebei Province Medical Technology Tracking Project (GZ2020013), the Hebei Clinical Medical Research Centre Project (20577701D), and the project of the Hebei Provincial Excellent Health Talents and High-Quality Development of Public Hospitals ([2022]180).
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Wei Zhou and Jinsheng Xu designed this study; Wei Zhou and Yunfeng Zhao performed data collection and analysis and wrote the first draft. Jingjing Jin, Meijuan Cheng, and Yaling Bai revised this paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Zhou, W., Zhao, Y., Jin, J. et al. The association of hemoglobin ethylene oxide levels with albuminuria in US adults: analysis of NHANES 2013–2016. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 4130–4139 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-31083-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-31083-6