Abstract
We aimed to assess the association between exposure to various air pollutants, individually or jointly, and incident kidney stones, and examine whether genetic susceptibility for kidney stones may modify this association. 453,977 participants without prior kidney stones from the UK Biobank were included. Annual mean concentrations of PM2.5, PM2.5–10, PM10, NO2, and NOx were estimated with a land use regression model. A weighted air pollution score was constructed that incorporates the five pollutants mentioned above. A genetic risk score (GRS) was calculated based on 20 single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with kidney stones. The primary outcome was incident kidney stones. During a median follow-up of 11.9 years, 5,375 kidney stones were recorded. The adjusted HRs (95%CI) of incident kidney stones were 1.04 (1.01–1.07), 1.02 (1.00–1.05), 1.03 (1.01–1.06), 1.05 (1.02–1.08), and 1.04 (1.01–1.07), for per standard deviation (SD) increment in PM2.5 (SD:1.06 μg/m3), PM2.5–10 (SD:0.90 μg/m3), PM10 (SD:1.90 μg/m3), NO2 (SD:7.63 μg/m3), and NOx (SD: 15.63 μg/m3), respectively. Moreover, there was a significantly linear association between the air pollution score and incident kidney stones (per SD increment: HR, 1.05, 95%CI: 1.02–1.08), especially in those without diabetes (vs. participants with diabetes; P-interaction = 0.037). In addition, the association between air pollution and kidney stones was statistically significant only in participants within intermediate-high kidney stone GRS, but not in those with low GRS kidney stone, though the interaction was not significant (P-interaction = 0.385). In conclusion, exposure to air pollution was associated with a higher risk of incident kidney stones, calling for the need to improve air quality.
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Data availability
The UK Biobank data are available on application to the UK Biobank, and the analytic methods, and study materials that support the findings of this study will be available from the corresponding authors on request.
Abbreviations
- PM:
-
Particulate matter
- NO2 :
-
Nitrogen dioxide
- NOx :
-
Nitrogen oxides
- ESCAPE:
-
European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects
- BMI:
-
Body mass index
- ICD:
-
International Classification of Diseases
- eGFR:
-
Estimated glomerular filtration rate
- TDI:
-
Townsend Deprivation Index
- UACR:
-
Urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio
- GRS:
-
Genetic risk score
- SNPs:
-
Single-nucleotide polymorphisms
- IQR:
-
Interquartile range
- HR:
-
Hazards ratio
- SD:
-
Standard deviation
- CI:
-
Confidence interval
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Acknowledgements
We especially thank all the participants of the UK Biobank and all the people involved in building the UK Biobank study. This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource under Application Number 73201.
Funding
The study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program (2022YFC2009600, 2022YFC2009605) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81973133).
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Concept and design: Xiaoqin Gan and Xianhui Qin;
Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: Xiaoqin Gan, Yanjun Zhang, Panpan He, Ziliang Ye, Chun Zhou, Mengyi Liu, Sisi Yang, Yuanyuan Zhang, and Xianhui Qin;
Statistical analysis: Xiaoqin Gan and Chun Zhou;
Obtained funding: Xianhui Qin;
Supervision: Xianhui Qin;
Writing-original draft: Xiaoqin Gan and Xianhui Qin;
Writing-review & editing: Xiaoqin Gan, Yanjun Zhang, Panpan He, Ziliang Ye, Chun Zhou, Mengyi Liu, Sisi Yang, Yuanyuan Zhang, and Xianhui Qin.
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Gan, X., Zhang, Y., He, P. et al. Positive association between ambient air pollutants and incident kidney stones. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 124067–124077 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-31136-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-31136-w