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Fingernail Trace Element Content in Environmentally Exposed Individuals and Its Influence on Their Cognitive Status in Ageing

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to identify links between potential long-term environmental exposure to mixed contamination and the neuropsychological performance of a group of adults (> 55 years old) living near an industrial facility. Fifty-eight permanent residents were evaluated with the Mini-Mental State Examination and Clinical Dementia Rating scale (CDR) tests. Human biomonitoring involved the measurement of trace elements in fingernails to determine exposure. Only fingernail Hg contents of the Estarreja group are above the mean content found for non-exposed and healthy centenaries populations, although several outlier values were observed for the majority of the elements. From the total of individuals recruited for the study, 29% obtained a 0 score on CDR indicating a normal status, 34% scored 0.5 which is suggestive of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 22% had a cognitive performance indicative of mild dementia, and 14% fall under the categories of moderate and severe dementia. Principal component analysis and multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) were combined to identify groups of correlated variables discriminating well the cognitive functions examined by the different neuropsychological tests. The results obtained show that fingernails’ data discriminate well between CDR scores for normal and altered cognitive statuses, and further suggest that elevated levels of Mn and Zn in fingernails of the elderly residents of Estarreja are associated to a condition of severe dementia. The poor discriminating ability of the MDA model for intermediate categories of the cognitive tests (MCI, mild dementia) may be attributed either to a lack of sensitivity of the cognitive tests for the screening of these intermediate conditions or to the similar Zn and Mn contents in fingernail observed in participants falling under such categories.

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Acknowledgements

Funding for this research was provided by the Foundation for Science and the Technology (SFRH/BPD/71030/2010 and Project UI/D/GEO/04035/2013) and cofunded by the Labex DRIIHM, French programme “Investissements d’Avenir” (ANR-11-LABX-0010) which is managed by the ANR. We thank the participants for taking part in this research, and the local private institutions of social solidarity for the collaboration (Santa Casa Misericórdia de Estarreja, Associação Humanitária de Salreu, Centro Paroquial Social São Tomé de Canelas, Centro Paroquial Social Avanca, Fundação Cónego Filipe Figueiredo Beduíno, Centro Paroquial de Pardilhó, Associação ABCD Alzheimer de S. Romão). The manuscript benefited from careful and constructive reviews by three anonymous reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences, Geobiotec Research Centre, University of Aveiro, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    Marina M. S. Cabral Pinto, A. Paula Marinho-Reis & Eduardo Ferreira da Silva

  2. Faculty of Medicine, CNC- Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, 3030-548, Coimbra, Portugal

    Marina M. S. Cabral Pinto, Sandra Freitas & Paula I. Moreira

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Coimbra, 3030-790, Coimbra, Portugal

    Marina M. S. Cabral Pinto

  4. Laboratory of Applied Chemistry, Department of Chemical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, LAQV/REQUIMTE, Porto University, 4050-313, Porto, Portugal

    Agostinho Almeida, M. Luísa Diniz, Edgar Pinto & Patrícia Ramos

  5. Centro de Investigação do Núcleo de Estudos e Intervenção Cognitivo Comportamental (CINEICC), Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Sandra Freitas & Mário R. Simões

  6. Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade de Coimbra (FPCE-UC), Coimbra, Portugal

    Mário R. Simões

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  1. Marina M. S. Cabral Pinto
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  9. Eduardo Ferreira da Silva
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Correspondence to Marina M. S. Cabral Pinto.

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Cabral Pinto, M.M.S., Marinho-Reis, A.P., Almeida, A. et al. Fingernail Trace Element Content in Environmentally Exposed Individuals and Its Influence on Their Cognitive Status in Ageing. Expo Health 11, 181–194 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12403-018-0274-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12403-018-0274-1

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