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Association between urinary cadmium concentrations and liver function in adolescents

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Abstract

Evidence from previous studies has shown that exposure to cadmium (Cd) is associated with cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and osteoporosis, but the effects of Cd on liver toxicity in adolescents are unclear. The data of 4411 adolescents who participated in the US The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) during 1999–2016 was analyzed. Liver function was indicated by the levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate amino transferase (AST). The associations between the levels of urinary Cd and liver function were evaluated using multivariate logistic regression models adjusted for covariates. The results showed that the odds ratios of ALT and AST in the highest quartiles of urinary Cd were 1.40 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.07–1.82) and 1.64 (95% CI, 1.10–2.44), respectively, compared with the lowest quartiles, which were similar to using urinary creatinine as the covariate. We also found linear regression of associations of urinary Cd with elevated ALT and AST levels in boys. In addition, one augmented urinary Cd concentration unit (Log10) was associated with a 0.04-mg/dL increase in C-reactive protein and a 0.53-mg/dL decrease in HDL cholesterol in the fully adjusted model. Our results add novel evidence that exposure to Cd might be positively associated with indicators of liver injury, indicating the potential toxic effect of Cd exposure on the adolescent liver. Further confirmatory studies are needed.

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Data Availability

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/nhanes_questionnaires.htm.

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Funding

This work was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation of China (81900281) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M691641).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Second Clinical Medical School of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 211166, People’s Republic of China

    Zining Xu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 211166, People’s Republic of China

    Zhenkun Weng, Jingjia Liang, Qian Liu, Xin Zhang, Jin Xu, Cheng Xu & Aihua Gu

  3. Key Laboratory of Modern Toxicology of Ministry of Education, Center for Global Health, Nanjing Medical University, 211166, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China

    Zhenkun Weng, Jingjia Liang, Qian Liu, Xin Zhang, Jin Xu, Cheng Xu & Aihua Gu

  4. Department of Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, 211166, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China

    Jin Xu

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  1. Zining Xu
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Contributions

C.X.: conceptualization, methodology. J.J.L., and Q.L.: data curation, project administration. Z.N.X. and Z.K.W.: writing—original draft preparation and editing. C.X. and A.H.G.: supervision, investigation. X.Z. and J.X.: validation. C.X.: writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Cheng Xu or Aihua Gu.

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Ethics approval and consent to participate

The consent form was signed by the survey participants, and the participants consented to storing specimens of their blood for future research. The CDC/NCHS Ethics Review Board approved the NHANES study and gave approval for public dissemination.

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Not applicable. There are no individual-level data in our publication.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Lotfi Aleya

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Zining Xu and Zhenkun Weng contributed equally to this paper

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Xu, Z., Weng, Z., Liang, J. et al. Association between urinary cadmium concentrations and liver function in adolescents. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 39768–39776 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-18950-4

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